


Neck of the Woods

by Zealkin



Series: Sidereus [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Female Character of Color, Gen, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 63,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9127336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zealkin/pseuds/Zealkin
Summary: She feels the ache of growing pains that echo from years ago. She wants to pretend that they mean more than they do, has never done anything but.Growing had never been easy for him, she can see the yard clippings of a plant stunted from birth. She wonders what he’s doing here, sprouting amongst asphalt and broken glass when greener pastures await him. But then again, she is here too.They are two plants determined to rise from ashes that are not meant for them.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

 

Hanzo counted the space between the lightning strikes. ‘One, two, three’—he pulled his bow taught and fired three arrows. The thunder shook the earth and the body fell to the ground. The lightning was only the beginning of a storm that would last days— it was hurricane season in this region of the world

For him, it was a reminder, an isochronal bookmark for what had happened that day. The rain inundating his face and neck, the wind deafening. When the typhoon had struck, so had he.

Blinding light colored his vision. ‘One, two’—the thunder followed, the strike only two miles off this time, the vibrations rocking him to his core as he approached his felled target.

Rivulets of red streamed down the man’s form, his throat choking back the blood spilling from his neck. His struggle and gurgling was becoming all the more frantic as Hanzo approached.

Hanzo checked the back of his right hand, noting the tattoo that was present, an ouroboros, two snakes devouring each other just as the bounty had said. Hanzo could barely see the details of it. The rain was too biting and the lightning too intermittent, but it did not matter.  He had tracked this target for days and now he was fading. All he needed to do now was cart the body back.

The man’s head lolled against his shoulder, the rain making him an even heavier burden as Hanzo trudged through the swamp and bog.

He remembered the typhoon again, could remember the ache of the sword in his hand— the last time he had wielded one. He could still feel the ridges and bumps, calluses from that day that had not faded. His grip had been so tight they had had to peel his fingers away from the blade one by one. The blood had flaked off him like petals as he slowly came to the realization of what he had done.

Hanzo grunted and rubbed the water from his eyes. Another flash of lightning. ‘One’, he counted—the thunder struck down, closer this time. The shock from the lightning threw Hanzo off balance for a second. He righted himself, the body over his shoulder already dead and still.

He found land, but just barely, the soil already soft and failing underneath his feet. The field he walked through a muddy ocean of plant life and fallen trees.

He couldn’t see. The rain only fell harder, and the fog of his thoughts, too, became more difficult to trudge through.

They couldn’t find the body, only a trail that had led nowhere, off a cliff into certain death. Hanzo had washed his hands for hours, for days, weeks, and then he had left, had let the leftover winds from the typhoon sweep him away from Hanamura, away from everything.

It was hot, and he felt the air crackle around him. Another lightning strike, but there was no counting, no in-between. He felt heat radiate from the dead body into his, could feel his body burn and his blood seize. The light was scintillating, all-encompassing, and then there was nothing but darkness.

 

—

 

He dreamt of the castle, empty and foreboding, the shadows stretching into endless hallways and the dust dancing in the moonlight. He called out to someone, but no one answered.  His voice echoed, then faded into nothing. A hand rose out from the shadows and reached out to him, the familiar voice  speaking his name.

He startled awake, the same hand from his dream at his side. He lashed out instantly and grabbed onto the woman’s wrist, hard. She flinched away, but his grip held true.

“I do not miss bedside duty.” She hissed.

Hanzo took in his surroundings and the source of the voice. The woman looked tired, the mole on her left cheek tensing on her face, the rouge of her lips dipping down into a frown. She was outfitted in a white, long dress, her gloves of the same color covered in the remnants of what was most likely his blood. The room they were in was equipped with dated medical technology, an EKG monitor beeping by his side.

“Where am I, and who are you?” He asked.

She looked down at her arm and then up at him, glaring. “You got struck by lightning and you’re lucky I found you.”

Hanzo closed his eyes, remembered the strike hitting him and the body, the body—“I was carrying someone.”

 “I only found you.” Her eyes dropped to her hand and back at him, impatient.

He must have been blown away by the strike. Hanzo shook his head and released his hold on the woman.

She shook out her wrist, adjusting the glove on the offended hand. “You’ve been out a couple days. You’re still in NOLA, just off grid.”

It took him a minute to process this. His memory un-fogging after days of sleep.

He took a breath. “You are a doctor?”

She grimaced at the word. “Something like that.”

He started to get up but it was as if was struck again, as though fire was making its way through his veins. He panted, gasping for air, his vision dimming around the edges from the effort.

“You should rest.” She gently but firmly pushed him back into the mattress. “You have a lot of burns, and your arm is—”she tapered off.

Hanzo looked to his left side to see his tattooed arm neatly dressed and covered with layer upon layer of gauze and tape. He tried shifting it, but the same piercing pain raced through his shoulder. It smelled of antiseptic and rainwater, and he did not want to imagine what lay beneath it.

“—it will heal fine,” she finished.

He would have to take her word for it. He frowned and looked down where his legs should have been.  “And my prosthetics?”

“I had to remove them, you could have gotten struck again—”

Panic forced him to a sitting position.“You will return them to me.”

“You need to rest.” She grabbed at his shoulder and he shook it from her grasp.

She sighed. “You _are_ stubborn.”

“I told you, Rose,” said another voice.

It took Hanzo only a second to place it before Genji was standing at the doorway to the small room, arms crossed. His visor emitting an eerie green that was striking in the dimly lit room.

“You.” Hanzo said.

There was no telling that Genji had heard him, his helmet shielding any signs of awareness with a passivity that only made Hanzo angrier.

Rose sighed and turned to Genji. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” She glanced back at Hanzo for a moment, “I left the kettle on.”

She turned swiftly on her heel, giving Genji a look Hanzo could not place before leaving the room.

They both said nothing.  The closing of the door and Hanzo’s heartbeat the only noise in the small, cool room.

 

When Hanzo could no longer hear her footsteps. Genji finally turned to him. “You could have at least thanked her, Rose risks much to help us.”

“She is not part of your precious Overwatch?” He spat.

“No. Not anymore, anyway.” There was a pause as he looked at the door she had gone through before bringing his attention back to Hanzo.

“Then why are you here?”

He didn’t answer at first, stepping away from the doorway to regard Hanzo more closely. He took in his arm in particular, the gauze a tight, neat pattern. In the distance, Hanzo could hear thunder, indicating that the storm had yet to leave just yet.

“You are still killing, I see.”

Hanzo clenched the bedsheets even though his fingertips still felt like they had electricity burning through them. He was on shaky ground, had been since that day. The only way he felt any semblance of ease— when the earth stopped shaking— was when he snatched it out from underneath someone else. It was a crude manner of survival, but even now, with the person in question who had started the endless tremors standing before him, he could not help but revert to old habits.

“That is none of your concern.”

“Actually, it is. You’ve attracted Overwatch’s attention. We’re willing to overlook your misdemeanors…for a favor.”

For someone who had abandoned his own clan because of politics and expectations, he did not seem opposed to supporting those very things now.

“So you only work with criminals when it suits you?” he snapped.

Genji ignored his caustic reply. “Have you heard of Talon?”

They had interfered with business a few times before Hanzo had relinquished his title, of course he had heard of them. Overseas shipments would go missing with little to no warning and their attacks were often too sporadic for retaliation.

“What of them?"

“Turns out they have eyes and ears in a new satellite gang. They have taken residence in Hanamura.”

Hanzo’s eyes tightened. “You have taken down one clan before, you do not need my help dismantling another.”

“I told you not so long ago to pick a side. Now is the time.”

“I will not join your Overwatch.” He said.

“Then consider completing this mission for selfish reasons. Hanamura needs to be cleansed, we owe it that much.”

 Hanzo had always been a man of concrete facts. Peace did not factor into business— it rarely even factored into everyday life. He had said as much when they had last parted and he would say as much now. “Once this clan is defeated, another will spring up in its place.”

“Peace is never constant, brother. It must be maintained.”

Hanzo did not answer, merely thought on the similarities of their last exchange. This Genji still believed in him, still believed in peace. Both were unattainable, both disappointing.

“Do you not care?” Genji asked.

Hanzo could hear the click of his armor as the visor shifted aside, but he would not look at him.

“Even after all of these years... do you not regret what you did to those people?”

The strain in his voice forced Hanzo to look up, his eyes flickering.  “Do you not regret what you did to me?”

A swath of silence smothered the room. Hanzo looked Genji in the eye again, fully in the eye for the second time that year. He thought on the battle they had at the castle. The confusion at seeing the style and weaponry of a ghost mirrored onto his new form. The arrogance that had colored Genji’s tone, and how it had reverberated from the last time they had fought. The ache as Hanzo felt himself grip and ease up on his bow to make sure it wasn’t a blade, to make sure he was still in the present and not reliving again. And he had made him relive again. Hanzo was still reliving.

He couldn’t find the words, so stuck were they behind the veneer of memories—past and present, meeting much too violently.

So, he said nothing.

Maybe this Genji was incapable of sighing, but there was a tightness to his eyes as he replaced his visor, and a small slouch to his form that Hanzo read as disappointment. He tried to ignore it as he pressed his hand to his stomach, the fluids from his burns seeping through the gauze.

“I came here to take jurisdiction of this case in place of Overwatch, we need not speak on any personal matters as long as it is resolved.” Genj’s voice had shifted. Less of him was in it now, it sounded even more robotic, distant.

Hanzo ignored that, too.

“If you do not cooperate, I will be forced to apprehend you and hold you liable for your crimes.” With that, he turned and left the room, the door closing with a decisive click.

Hanzo sunk further into his pillows, grinding his teeth together, the contact stabilizing. He was grateful that his injuries kept him from tearing something—anything—apart.

He remembered his dream, remembered the hand that had reached out to him— it had been Genji’s mechanical one. He could still feel the steel of his blade at his own throat, could remember the moment he thought it might be cut open. His mind recalled the confusion, the anger… the relief— with perfect clarity.

He closed his eyes and tried not to dream.

 

\--

Rose

\--

 

The kettle cried at her stove.

Rose forgot to put on a glove to remove it and nearly burned herself for the second time that day. She sucked her teeth and picked it up carefully, the glove rough against her palm. She took a few calming breaths as she prepared the cups. Tea was simple, tea was easy, tea didn’t require having to step into a world of super heroes and villains to prove a point. Another breath, another sigh, she placed the leaves into the cups.

Rose could not save the world, and she had come to accept this fact as the years went by. She could try to piece together the parts of it that fell apart near her— and watch those pieces fall apart in turn. Why she continued to try, however, was becoming harder for her to answer. At first, it had been a distraction, a means to cope. Now, it had become a habit— she hardly thought about it, simply did.

Rose poured hot water into the thyme, juniper, black leaves, and chamomile. The dried herbs and leaves wilting and twirling around in the porcelain.

She squinted, looking for something between the leaves that would tell her what was in store for her. She could hazard a guess with the way Genji had left his brother’s room. His back too straight, his steps much too careful. Trying to remain at peace and in control even if everything within him told him he wasn’t.

He didn’t want to be comforted. She could tell by the way he sat on her couch, legs crossed, back facing her. This was how he coped, she had to respect that.

As for what he was coping from—Rose sighed and brought the two cups into said patient’s room.

He was lying on his side away from the door, but turned his head toward her when she stepped inside.

She was a neutral party, or she should have been. When treating someone, you weren’t supposed to wonder how they had maimed your friend to an unrecognizable degree. She scrunched her nose and placed the tray on the side table. A conflict of interests, to be sure.

He looked at the cups, then at her.

 

"It goes better with the painkillers." she answered his silent question.

He said nothing, but sat up, doing his best to hide the strain on his face. She took that as acquiescence and put his cup underneath a saucer.

She was about to hand it to him when she saw the gauze that had come undone on his stomach. She stifled a sigh before unrolling another strip and cutting open more eucalyptus. He didn't respond to this, either.

She pushed his arms up to wrap around his middle. Even though he hadn’t said a word since she had entered, the silence felt even more unbearable as she worked. She searched for a subject, a way to alleviate the tenseness in his stature. Her eyes shifted to his legs.

"I'm sorry for taking your prosthetics off— without your permission, that is."

He looked at her, brow raised.

She took a breath, continuing. "Some people don't like them touched. I can understand that."

He looked down to her own, her right hand now uncovered— the metal shining even in the dim lighting of the room. He glanced away quickly. "It is nothing."

"Even so, my bedside manners are a little rusty, I should have asked."

"I said that it did not matter."

He had other things to worry about, like how he should react to a long-lost brother that he had made long-lost to begin with. Did he feel remorse, sadness? Anything to indicate that he had done a wrong? She thought on the way Genji had left the room and thought he probably didn’t. She pulled the gauze a bit tighter than she needed to.

"How do you know him?" he asked as if reading her thoughts. The question after so much silence sounded strange to her ears, but she didn’t allow the surprise to telegraph on her face.

'Him', she noticed the way he edged around Genji’s name, as if he couldn’t quite believe in it, as if it was no longer real. The thought made her clench her jaw tight to keep herself civil.

She had been taught to avoid the painful and combustive emotions when speaking to a patient and to settle for something lighter. When all else failed, keep it simple, elementary, keep their blood pressure down.

 

"All Overwatch amputees and otherwise get together to complain about our missing extremities over cocktails."

"I did not realize he could drink."

"He…can't."

"Then—"

"It was a joke."

"A poor one."

She considered that might’ve been a bit too elementary. She also considered he might’ve been a bigger asshole than anticipated.

She sighed. "We met after I was discharged. He tried to get me to reenlist, but I decided against it."

"I see."

She had a feeling Mercy had something to do with Genji in particular coming her way. Rose had donated her share of funds to causes abroad, maybe Angela had wanted to show her that it had meant something, that both of their work could mean something. And that even though she and Genji were abled in different ways entirely, there were overlaps and commonalities they could relate to.

‘Less interesting than cocktails’, she thought.

He retreated back into a silence that Rose was beginning to believe was more inherent in his spirit than the dragons that Genji spoke of. She was relieved that she didn’t have to try and force any more small talk.

She finished redressing him and handed him his medicine and cup, which had cooled to a drinkable temperature. "The storm should let up by tomorrow, you can leave then," she said.

She got up to leave when he spoke again.

"Why did you help me?”

‘Always be placating, be patient and kind’. She took a breath internally. “Pardon?”

“You could have left me to die.  Are you expecting compensation from Overwatch?”

As if she wasn’t already regretting dragging his half-dead body into her home to begin with. She forced herself to keep smiling. “Nothing like that, dear.” She said.

“Why, then?”

A nurse had once told her that any healer worth their weight in salt would never let a man die by their feet, said that there was some compulsion in their spirits that forced them to take some type of action. Rose knew that compulsion well, had been punished for it, too. He took lives away, she gave them back, so why did she expect him to be grateful for something he clearly didn’t value?  How could she expect him to when he didn’t value his own kin’s?

She had taken lives before and hadn’t mourned every one, but hadn’t gone back for seconds, either. It was all habit and tempered reflex that had pieced him back together.  Reflexes and skill he should have been grateful for, but instead was questioning.

“Because you were there.” She told him instead. That’s all there was to it, after all.

He said nothing in response as she quickly placed the remaining cups on the tray before retreating out of the room.

 

—

 

The storm clouds drifted out and away from the city. She could see New Orleans from where she sat on the balcony, the smoke that drifted from her pipe white and dirty against the night sky. Crickets began chirping again after the three day deluge had halted their voices. It made for an odd midnight orchestra— Rose the only one in attendance.

 

“Doctors shouldn’t smoke.” Genji said, joining her outside.

She took another draw before answering. “Good thing I’m not a doctor.”

It wasn’t a habit quite yet, but she should stop before it became one. She listened to him approach, barely audible over the incessant chirping, but didn’t turn around. His footsteps were more natural this time.

“Have you thought about what I have said?” he asked.

More than she should have. She should have just given him a polite but firm 'no' like she had last time and told him to take his brother with him. She should have just dropped it so she could return to relative obscurity until her next tour started.

But she hadn’t. She wondered why she hadn’t. And she hated the possibility of her answer.

“It would just be this one mission.” He said, standing beside her.

She smiled into her pipe. “It’s never just one.”

“I know. It was worth a try, though.” The lightness he usually employed in his voice felt hollow, but neither of them commented on it.

More silence. A thick fog began to roll in, replacing the clouds. She idly wondered if the crickets were mourning and calling out to loved ones that had been lost.

“We are worried about you.” He said.

“We?”

He turned to her. “All of us.”

She didn’t ignore the stress he put on the word. She looked up at the stars, could see Cygnus just barely begin to peak through the fog before it faded again.

“You can’t give me specifics?” she asked.

“Not until you agree, you know the rules.”

She did, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try, either. They were friends, and like her, he was bound to his work, but he actually felt like he was making a difference. She never saw him hesitate from taking action, rarely saw him falter without getting back up again twice as excited than he was before. Envy was unbecoming, but still— she took another draw from her pipe and exhaled a bit too deeply before looking at him.

“No killing.” She said.

“You won’t need to, it’s not that kind of mission.”

“This is the last time.”

She felt him look at her, his voice soft. “I understand.”

The fog thickened and it settled on her skin, the feeling of almost wet making her shiver. The crickets had stopped calling.

Genji went back inside, to contact his superiors, she was sure. Who was even running the place anymore? She could only recall vague names and even vaguer faces of people she had never met face-to-face, but was expected to follow should they pass her way.

It didn’t matter, she was only staying for one mission. She wasn’t a soldier, and she knew she had never been cut out to be a doctor.

What was the use being able to piece together others if you couldn’t do the same to yourself?

She tapped the excess tobacco out over the balcony, and placed the pipe back into its case— storing it away, hopefully for a longer stretch of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to http://erothreep.tumblr.com/ for the beta!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by: http://erothreep.tumblr.com/

* * *

 

 

The next day, they debriefed.

Her foul mood from the other day compounded when she found that her garden had been ruined by the storm. Her small greenhouse, too, had been decimated. It didn’t help that the habitual humidity that followed closely after a storm woke her up much too early that morning to fiddle with her central air, and it certainly wasn’t ameliorated by having to redo her wayward patient’s bandages again after he had tried to exercise that morning.

Rose wasn't going to chastise a grown man for standing and moving around with third degree burns all over his body. She just wasn’t. Saying anything seemed so silly, so outlandish that mentioning it at all would only cement the absurdity of the situation.

 So she said nothing.

 She did give him a disapproving look as he leaned against the wall in her living room, which he didn't seem to notice. Either that, or he was ignoring her, which was more likely than not.

 Genji stood between the two of them, a blockade to her ire. He had told her that the mission was reconnaissance only. Danger was involved, as it was to be expected, but the nature of that danger was unknown to her. She took a deep breath and wished she had made more tea this morning.

 

"Talon has begun to move into the public sphere, but only to gain enough support to keep their organization afloat. Your job is to find out who the donors are and to disrupt the flow." Genji started.

 "Why would anyone in their right mind fund a terrorist organization?"she asked.

 "They use fronts, donations for ‘countries in need’ is an easy enough phrase to manipulate as they see fit," Genji shrugged."They’ve been using the front RESOLVE for the last few years. The main source of their funding comes from a small selection of donors with no political ties. Which is where you come in.”

 She let the reality of her affluence sit for a moment, just one.

 She did try her best not to look at her patient, who hadn’t known that fact. The very same patient that had assumed she was after a few shiny coins from Overwatch for turning him in. Money wasn’t gratifying to her, but the look on his face was.

 “You will pose as one of the donors to gain access to that inner circle.” Genji roused her from her thoughts.

 She frowned. “Won’t they suspect me?”

 "You are a disabled veteran that has not rejoined since Recall. Reason enough for things to go sour." Rose knew many who hadn’t even been involved in the conflict but had gotten stuck in the cross fires that felt that way, and she couldn’t blame them. Genji hadn’t lied to her, this wouldn’t be about killing. It was all an elaborate performance, something she was used to.

 “Overwatch was too public when we last disbanded. We put pressure on people in all the wrong ways. We are trying to make sure we do not show our hand as much this time.”

 Translation: “So, that means I’m on my own, right?”

 “No, not entirely.”

 She had wondered why the brother’s presence was necessary, had assumed he was too stubborn to keep put in his room. Was still convinced that he had been too stubborn to stay in his room, actually. But now it was clear, he had some role in this.

 He stayed quiet, however, whatever Genji had already told him pacifying him for the moment.

 "Hanzo will be the eyes. According to our intel, those from this new clan they employ use the same tactics as the Shimada’s. And I am—"

 “A member of Overwatch, so you can’t help either,” she interrupted, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose.

 "Correct.”

 "So he's my what, assistant? Should I make him disappear in one of my acts?"

 She could feel Hanzo glowering at her from across the room, but didn’t turn to look at him.

 "Nothing so flashy, unfortunately. He will be your bodyguard."

 She smiled, it was light, perfunctory. A smile she used in many conversations with people whom she had no kind words for. It was a nurse’s smile, one she had perfected and one that she loathed.

 Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the brother react. If his brow rose any higher, it was going to collude with his hairline.

 Rose didn’t hate many things. Fabricated sugar, maybe. People who couldn’t crack a smile, probably. Being stuck with a belligerent patient who didn’t seem to have any sense of self-awareness? Definitely. It was funny, really, how fate had strung her so tightly to those that she had healed no matter how many times she tried to walk away. Even funnier still was how she kept falling into it, that even abject loneliness hadn’t prevented it.

 The past, present, and future were working against her, no amount of hoodoo could prevent something meant to be. Bitterness was not becoming either, but Rose found she was doing her fair share of indecorous actions as of late.

 She shook her head, finally speaking. "A bodyguard. Really?"

 "Best case scenario you won't need him, but I don't think he would earn any points back with card tricks.”

 She tried imagining Genji’s brother with a deck in his hand, a performer’s smile on as he asked someone from the audience to pick a card. Definitely not.

 “And after we infiltrate?”

 “Leak their information to the public, and keep them from rebuilding. If we hit them where their money is, they will have a harder time coordinating against us.”

 Rose nodded, but didn’t say much else as the debriefing continued. It began raining again, but it sounded more like hail than anything as it hit the windows and walls, nearly drowning out Genji’s voice.

—

 

When they finished, Hanzo pried himself from the wall and retreated back to his makeshift room.

The two of them watched him leave in silence.

 Rose turned to Genji, perfunctory smile sliding off her face. “Genji, I realize you have your own way of doing things, but your brother—There has to be someone better suited for this.”

 Genji had spent a long time accepting what he was, what he had become. It had exacted its toll on him in ways that Rose still saw in his gait from time to time. To see the person that had caused that pain and see the care with which he regarded him was confusing. She wanted to respect Genji’s wishes, but this was a bit much even for her.

 

 "He has wounds, too, scars that have never had the chance to heal."

 She clenched her teeth."He knew what he was doing."

 Genji turned away from her. "That does not make them any less deep."

 "Genji—"

 "He wanted to die, Rose."

 She paused to look at him, really look at him. He was tired, exhausted. Even with a body that didn’t wane and falter in the same way that hers did, she saw it in his posture. The way he clenched and unclenched his hands, the way his shoulders tensed. Even with his helmet on, she could imagine the bags under his eyes denoting sleeplessness.

"When I confronted him, I gained the upper hand—he was going to let me kill him."

 She reached out to touch him, but thought better of it. "I'm sorry.”

 He shook his head, but otherwise said nothing.

 There were ties, bonds that she couldn’t understand. From a neutral perspective she knew this, knew that Genji’s relationships with many in Overwatch, and now outside of it, were fraught with a history that was hard to ignore. This was why Genji had traveled, had trained and meditated for years, to make sure knowledge of that past and those that made him who he was wouldn’t consume him.

 Rose had wondered at first why he bothered telling her anything about himself. But Rose wasn’t connected to any of it, she was a fringe member at best, someone who didn’t have influence over him or his body. She didn’t want to betray that trust he had put in her.

 She took a breath. “I was worried about you—am worried, but—" she gave him a small smile. "Well, you know him better than I do, after all."

 He finally turned to face her. "I appreciate the concern, but this is something we need to work out on our own."

 “I understand. I will do my best.”

 “That is all I can ask from you. If it were up to me, you would not have been involved.”

 She shook her head lightly.“But it’s not.”

 Genji nodded. There was another tiredness there. He may have enjoyed doing what was right, but it was not on his terms.

 Rose forced herself to smile again. “I know you can’t drink alcohol, but how about some tea? I think your box is still here from last time.”

 He looked toward her, tilting his head to the side, his shoulders unwinding from their usual tenseness.

 “I would like that.”

 

—

 

The past continued poking fun at her, this she was certain of.

 It had been the first time she had rifled through her father’s belongings in years. Mothballs littered the bottom of the closet as she shook the dust from two plain white button-downs and two pairs of black trousers that had survived the ages. His frame had been large according to her mother and the old pictures she had of him, they would fit Genji’s brother well enough.

 When she had given them to him he had given them a once over, rubbing the cotton between his fingers. Another silent question. She was adept at answering those. Reading an audience for so long made reading an individual practically child’s play.

 

“You can’t wear armor on the plane.” She had answered.

 Something in his stature grew stiffer, more defiant as he looked at her. “I did not say anything.”

 She had shaken her head and left the room to finish packing on her own. He could buy other clothes when they got to California.

 Genji had left the night they had accepted their “mission” and said he would check in with them periodically. There was a moment where Rose thought the two of them would say something before they left, the living room quiet as they stood to face one another. The moment passed and Hanzo averted his eyes and drifted back to his room. Genji didn’t look at his retreating form, merely squeezed Rose’s shoulder and said he would speak to her soon in a voice that sounded much too cheery and light.

If anyone had mastered the ‘fake it 'til you make it’ it was him. It didn’t make him okay, though. It never did.

 They left Louisiana two days later. The first leg of her tour that year was in Los Angeles and Genji had assured her that Talon already had eyes on her money and would be there waiting to solicit her.

—

 

The morning of their leaving was a stillborn of dawn. The sun sat cold and small in the morning sky, the life below it quiet and slow as the day crept on.

Rose watched the sun burn off its premature start and settle more fully into the sky. She looked on from her seat on their plane, the light a welcome warmth compared to the sterile coolness of the aircraft.  She nestled herself deeper into her seat, trying to ignore the movement to her left.

She didn’t take him for the fidgety type.

He drew tinier and tinier squares on his napkin. The plane began to move and they only got smaller. When the stewardess made the usual announcements, he froze, listening intently, only continuing when the disembodied voice stopped.

He had never been on a plane before.

He didn't seem like the type who took comfort in random safety statistics or platitudes. No, he probably knew that his fear wasn't a logical one, she could tell with how the squares on the sheet of paper began to resemble octagons as his hand tightened against the pen.

He knew and he probably hated it.

She paused and considered for a moment. A murderer and criminal being afraid of airplanes had a comical air to it, but Rose couldn’t find it in herself to laugh. She wasn’t too far off from those labels, either.

She closed the window shade nearest to their seats before prying the pen from his hand. He looked almost frantic for a moment, then angry before she flipped over the napkin and drew a tic-tac-toe table on the back.

 

"You know how to play, right?"

"Yes," he said, his jaw clenching.

"Okay then." She started with an _O_.

 She offered the pen to him. He stared at it for a few seconds, eyes hard and wary.

Finally, he took the pen back from her, gripping it much too tightly as he responded with an _X_.

She cut him off from the center of the table and handed the pen back to him. 

He was annoyed, but at least it was at the game and not the circumstances of their transportation. Her winning the first game only engrossed him further. They had finished several rounds before he realized they had already taken flight.

He looked around a moment then looked at her, something in his eyes shifting, before they hardened again and he won their most recent game with a neatly placed _X_.

 

“You allowed me to win.”

She shrugged. “And?”

The habitual brow rose. She was never going to get used to that thing.

“I do not need your pity.”

“Is that what you call someone doing something nice for you? Pity?” she placed the pen down, the need for the game having passed.

“We are not acquainted, nor are we friends. Strangers only act for other strangers out of pity.” He replied.

He wielded his words like knives, lashing out and striking down any who drew too close. Whether it was a defense mechanism or simply who he was she had yet to figure out. Either way, it was annoying.

A smile had always been her weapon of choice, cool, detached and unnerving— it disarmed him again for the moment. “You haven’t met enough strangers, then.”

Dislike stained his features, crumpling his brow and leaving him in a pensive silence that would not relieve itself until the plane landed.

Genji had been wrong, she was on her own. It would be best for her to start acting like it now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to http://erothreep.tumblr.com/ for the beta!

* * *

 

 

She was reminded of drawing blood.  
  
Whenever she saw crowds, she did her best not to see veins. Veins and veins of people all stemming from different hearts, coming from different homes and walks of life. But they were not arteries, blood-pumping or otherwise, they were people.  
  
The airport was densely packed as they exited the bitter coolness of the aircraft. Rose was used to being on her own, used to dealing with the throngs of fans that push and swell when they learned of her imminent arrival. She just didn’t think there would be that many, and she didn’t think to tell Hanzo to stay close.  
  
She took a breath and dug herself deeper into the crowd. The heat was unbearable stuck between the sweaty and the impatient, but the crowd itself was a buffer as much as it was a shield. The closer she got to them, the harder it was for them to tell it was her and not a bedraggled traveler trying to get to a connecting flight. The sunglasses admittedly helped a bit, but everyone wore sunglasses in Los Angeles. By the time she had broken through the group of people and had freshened up in the restroom, Hanzo was nowhere to be found. She took her phone out of her pocket only to realize she hadn’t bothered to ask for his number.  
  
She sighed and continued toward the terminal exit. Just as she was about to pass through security a hand grasped onto her shoulder, firmly.  
  
He wasn’t happy. The lines of his face even more pronounced as he glared down at her.  


“Well ‘Hello’ to you too.”  
  
“Why did you not stick by me in the crowd?”  
  
“You’re like Genji, right? Trained. Surely you could find one woman in an airport.”  
  
His frown deepened. “Just because I am able does not mean I enjoy spending my time doing it.”  
  
He walked ahead of her past security. She resisted rolling her eyes at him as he brushed by her. Not only stubborn, but childish, Genji hadn’t mentioned that in the run-down he had given of his brother and what to expect.  
  
She reluctantly followed.“Well, you also failed to give me your phone number, this could have all been avoided if you—”  
  
“I do not possess a phone.”  
  
She stopped walking and he followed suit. “Why?”  
  
“I have never needed one.”  
  
That was a bit sad, still.  
  
“It’s 2076.”  
  
“Do you think saying the year will make one manifest in my palm?”  
  
She sighed and resisted snapping back at him. “Well, we’re getting you one.”  
  
He had no response to that, something she was beginning to get used to, him ending conversation abruptly.  
  
He wasn’t very forthright in providing any verbal communication to begin with, so why was she surprised he didn’t have a device that encouraged him to do such?  
  
She sped off in one direction and didn’t turn to see if he was following her.  
  
The store was brightly lit, as all cell phone providers often were and Rose browsed the plethora of smartphones on the shelf. She wasn’t too keen on the may technological advances that the year 2076 brought. Most of the new phone technology was for show, the casing a status symbol more than anything. Wireless invisible headsets had been a craze for awhile, and so had internet glasses and early 2000’s flip phones that Rose found entirely unusable and calling to a nostalgia she couldn’t fathom. Regardless of what she thought, staying in touch with her manager and fans was mandatory when she was on tour.  
  
It gathered dust on every other occasion, or it had before she had called Genji and told him she had found his wayward brother half-dead on her doorstep.  
  
Speaking of said brother, he was looking through the store, a storm cloud following him through it. The fact that he had to trail her around already wearing at his nerves. Bodyguard indeed.  


“Pick something,” she prompted.  
  
He eyed the length of wall where smartwatches were suspended within clear glass cases, but said nothing in response, merely shook his head.  
  
“Okay,” she sighed, picking up a flip phone.  
  
The screen was touch-enabled and had all the features of the more advanced smartphones but without the futuristic look to them. He didn’t seem like the type that was into overly fancy gadgets, his wardrobe had been rather dated—not that she was one to talk.  
  
“What about this one?” she asked.  
  
“It has sticky keys.”  
  
She gave him a look. “I thought you didn’t care which one.”  
  
“I did not say that, you inferred that on your own.”  
  
She placed the phone back with a bit more force than what was strictly necessary and put her hand on her hip.  
  
“Then please, by all means,” she gestured toward the phones.  
  
He was clearly trying to get a rise out her and she forced herself to breathe, to smile. It didn’t affect him as it had the first time, and he grimaced before picking up the most expensive phone in the store.  
  
“This one.”  
  
Of course it had to be the that one.  
  
“Wonderful,” she smiled. She kept an even tone with the clerk as she added the phone to her plan. She punched his number into her contacts and handed him the phone without touching his palm.  
  
She brushed past him and to the luggage claim, grateful that the swell of people had thinned and that their ride was already there.  
  
—  
   
The hotel they were staying at was nice enough not to have a reputation for bedbugs, but not to have celebrities staying there as often as she did. They knew her by the outrageous pseudonyms she gave them, but they had long since guessed who she was and none of them had divulged her information to media outlets, for which she was grateful. Tipping a little extra kept mouths shut tight.  
  
This time she used her real name, to make sure it was on the books so Talon would be able to find her more easily. Not that it would hinder them, but still, she wanted to be transparent.  
  
The room had a spacious common area and two bedrooms. Hanzo made a beeline for what she supposed was his side of the room now and she finally allowed her eyes to roll before going to her own.  
  
The show was tomorrow, and there was much to prepare spiritually and mentally for, and she didn’t have time to babysit. He was an adult and could take care of himself.  
  
She shook out and hung up her wardrobe for the next day, set up her shrine for the ancestors, and began prayer and meditation.  
  
She focused on the incense and the wick of the white candle as she calmed herself.

Memories often came bubbling to the surface while she was so attuned. Some that stayed in the emergency room were difficult, the memory burned to the surface of her mind again. The smell of incense replaced with the all-encompassing fog of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. The nurse teaching her the ropes had bared the flesh of the patient's arm and Rose had stared.  


“Feel for the vein, push until you feel it pushing back, hear? If not—” she flicked the patient's arm with her forefinger, the resulting action causing the blue of their vein to reveal itself. “You give it a little pull.”  
  
Rose had nodded. She hadn’t liked giving patients IVs and plucking their blood from the veins, she felt too much like a leech and less like the healer that she was supposed to be back then. She had always hated taking, but it had been necessary—all of it had been.  
  
Her mind wandered back to the present. She thought of Talon, coaxing and pulling veins in their own fashion—vampirish in their manipulation of others. She thought of the Shimada brothers, each pushing and pulling, seeing what they could get out of the other despite the well of their relationship already being run dry.  
  
Not for the first time in the past few days, Rose thought of what she was truly doing here. What her purpose was nestled in-between relationships and mission plans she only saw the inklings of.  
  
She prayed to the ancestors for success, but even that seemed a hollow action.  
  
—  
  
She wasn’t used to speaking to someone so often, much less have them in her presence on the daily. So, every time she heard Hanzo move in the other room or turn on the sink for water, she had to keep herself from jumping out of her skin. She hadn’t even been able to sleep the first night on the West Coast, and the time difference hadn’t helped much, either.  
  
Needless to say, she had woken up from a restless and tumultuous sleep to an equally tumultuous and snide roommate.  
  
He didn’t bother saying anything to her before he left that morning, not returning until late into the evening when her show was to take place.  
  
—  
He was ironing his shirt.  
  
This was normal, something that everyone had to do every now and again, practical. But the fact remained that he was ironing it an hour before Rose was to appear on stage.  
  
She tried not to sound too stressed when she told him to hurry for the tenth time in the last ten minutes. Not that it would have mattered. He was ignoring her, going as slowly as he possibly could. Which was also fine, this all would have been all right if he hadn’t taken residence in their room’s only bathroom. An oversight to be sure, to have two bedrooms and only one bathroom was a ridiculous standard and Rose briefly which she had spent a ridiculous sum of money like her peers had so this situation would not be happening.  
  
“Might I remind you that primping fails to take precedence over our jobs here?”  
  
He finally opened the door to the bathroom and brushed by her, freshly pressed shirt and tie in hand.  
  
She couldn’t find it in herself to muster up an argument and got ready as quickly as she was able.  
  
  
They arrived on time, miraculously.  
  
Her manager, Michel, ran up to her, already speaking a mile a minute about who she should look out for in the audience, what the stage setup was like, and Rose was too high-strung to do anything but tune him out.  


“Who’s this?” he asked, hand on his hip as he zeroed in on Rose’s company.  
  
That unfortunately got her attention.  
  
“Michel, this is Hanzo, my new bodyguard.”  
  
He gave her a dubious look, giving Hanzo a long once over. He was wearing the white shirt she had given him, his appearance neat and effortless despite the rush it took to get here.  
  
Rose stood her ground. “You did say I needed more security.”  
  
“I was imagining someone a bit…taller.”  
  
Rose forced herself not to smile.  
  
Hanzo shifted beside her, but otherwise said nothing.  
  
“And no uniform? That won’t do. Go backstage and get one of the suits to wear. You can’t just go out there in a white-collar shirt.”  
  
“We were rushing, and—” Rose was interrupted by Michel pushing her up a short flight of stairs to the stage.  
  
“Why are we still talking? You need to be on stage, you need to be in the dressing room, I need to yell at the lighting director—let’s move, people.”  
  
He rushed away, fussing at everyone who got within range and haranguing the lighting team from yards away. Rose rolled her shoulders back, adjusting her bustier.  
  
“You had best do what he says. Michel doesn’t like to repeat himself—something you have in common.”  
  
He stared down at her, jaw hard. “Make sure you keep an eye out.”  
  
She mimicked his stance. “You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”  
  
—  
As soon as Rose stepped onto stage and greeted her audience, she knew from a quick read of the crowd that Talon wasn’t among them. She felt her hands grow cold, felt herself young and fumbling for the vein at her patient's arm again.  
  
She took a deep breath and began the show with her trademark smile.  
  
_“Welcome to the Conjureress’ world of wonders!”_  
  
—  
  
Routine was something she was used to. What some may have seen as predictable, Rose saw as grounding, stabilizing.  
  
She wasn’t sleeping.  
  
She thought her hyper-awareness would end after living with him for the past week, but not knowing where he was or whether or not he had left the room put her in a cyclical state of anxiety. Unpredictable, but constant. At one point, he stumbled into the kitchen well past midnight and the heavy thud of something breaking against the floor told her that he had knocked over one of her potted plants. When she went in a few minutes later to clean up, the sink was still running. The gauze from his burn was unfurled and strewn across the counter. She sighed before she shut off the sink and spent the rest of the early morning hours meditating.  
  
At least they had two bathrooms this time.  
  
Despite this, Hanzo’s routine consisted of making them late to her shows and partitioning himself off into one side of the hotel room.  
  
Which was fine by Rose, the less they snapped at each other, the sooner this terrible situation would be over and done with.  
  
Talon, however, wasn’t taking the bait as Genji had said they would. Not at Los Angeles, or even San Diego, which was one of her more popular venues.  
  
She was beginning to think Hanzo may have frightened them off. He wasn’t exactly world-renowned, but he had led the Shimada family at one point, surely Talon knew of his past affiliation and was giving him, and Rose by proxy, a wide berth.  
  
She didn’t blame them. She was also trying to find a way to do anything that didn’t direct his ire toward her. He had tripped over her potted plants several times when she had unpacked them in the living room and hadn’t apologized for it. He simply began avoiding common room spaces between them more than usual. Even after shows, she couldn’t find him in the thrum of the crowd. When he had decided Talon was not at an event, he simply left, returning to their hotel room or trying to find his own answers in the city they were in. Either way, he wasn’t helping. She tried texting him and he apparently wasn’t too keen on checking his fancy new phone, either.  
  
When he wasn’t bounding off into the city, he was meditating. Taking hours upon hours to himself in the bathroom, locking himself inside and nearly making them late for their flight.  
  
All of the disorder that made up their interactions disquieted Rose and made any peace that she sought out impossible to attain.  
  
They arrived in Georgia, and despite the quiet lull of the hotel they were staying at, Rose felt more tired than she had ever been. If Hanzo noticed, he didn’t say anything.  
  
Michel directed makeup to apply more cover-up than usual that night. The only disruption a flicker from the lighting on the stage, her manager made sure to yell at the team again and Rose had given them a consoling look, she’d give them a little extra for tonight.  
  
  
Threes were important, they were usually a sign of change or something new to come.  
  
Georgia was the third stop. Atlanta, a city of superstars and the flamboyant, but also of magic and history that Rose felt every time she stepped out onto the stage. When it came time for her to disappear, her final trick, she felt another presence in the audience a flickering like the lights, but then it was gone, and so was she.  
  
She grounded herself backstage, the heat easing from her bones as she set herself back in reality.  
  
Hanzo was there, arms crossed and curious, but otherwise he didn’t seem on edge. It hadn’t been a coincidence, Rose was sure, but when she reappeared back onto stage, bowing to her audience and throwing a few roses from her sleeve out to her crowd, the feeling had left again.  
  
It was a perfect performance, nothing out of the ordinary, which was what bothered her.  
  
She told this to Hanzo before he went off to God knows where and he had simply looked at her.  


“If I saw something, I would have told you.”  
  
She tried to keep her temper, but even with the few weeks that they had been together he hadn’t been any more forthcoming. His trust just as impenetrable. “It’s a bad feeling I got from it, and my feelings aren’t often wrong.”  
  
He crossed his arms, squinting. “Is that another trick as well? Spinning feelings from thin air?”  
  
She strode ahead of him, breaking his stride to stand in front of him, stalwart. “You have dragon spirits ingrained into your skin and you doubt other magic can exist in this world?”  
  
“I do not doubt you have abilities, but I also do not doubt my own perception of the world around me.”  
  
He stepped around her, and she turned to grab his arm to stop him.  
  
She had felt it briefly when she had wrapped up his wounds, but a strange electricity pulsed through his arms to hers, forcing her to jump back. He was volatile, their magic incompatible. She had a similar feeling when she was around Genji, but it was a pleasant thrum, an understanding she felt in his spirit. Hanzo’s was a torrent, wave after wave of untempered emotion rushing beneath the surface.  
  
He said nothing in response to this, but his countenance faltered by the tiniest of margins before he turned to leave.  
  
Rose watched him leave, her hand still buzzing.  
\--  
  
Genji called her when she got back to the room. She looked around the room briefly—Hanzo nowhere to be found as usual—before locking herself in the bathroom. She toed off her heels before answering in Creole.  


“[Should you be calling me right now?]”  
  
“[It is safe for now, I got Lucio to mask our calls with local satellite stations. How are things?]”  
  
She sighed, glad to hear her language from lips other than her own. Genji was conversant with many languages, she learned he often picked them up “for fun” when he was bored. At the time, she had been amused by it, but now she was thankful. It provided another layer of secrecy and gave her an outlet for her frustrations that English couldn’t provide.  
  
“[He’s impossible.]”  
  
“[Ah. That did not take long.]”  
  
She grunted into the receiver, unfurling her hair from its many trappings. “[I know you don’t really put up with him now per se, but I’m not sure how you ever did.]”  
  
“[Being taller helped, though he does take some getting used to.]”  
  
“[The Hanzo learning curve?]”  
  
“[It is more like a cliffside than a curve. What of your tour, what have you learned?]”  
  
She was reminded of the most recent incident backstage with her grouch of a roommate. She still felt her hand buzzing and shook it to alleviate herself of the feeling. “[Nothing yet. The only oddities have been malfunctioning lights on stage, but that’s hardly an invitation. According to Hanzo, it’s all my imagination, but I truly don’t think he’s seen anything. He would have told me that much, I’m sure.]”  
  
“[Yes, he would have. It is troubling that they have yet to show interest.]”  
  
“[It might be for the best, this isn’t exactly the most productive arrangement.]”  
  
Silence.  
  
“[Did you wish to stop?]”  
  
She eyed the other side of the bathroom, the laundry board still out from when Hanzo had used it only hours ago. Her aloe plant resting on the sink after she had to re-pot it. The soil was still hardy, the plant unbending despite its most recent fall.  
  
She took a deep breath, she wasn’t one to renege on her promises. “[I didn’t say that.]”  
  
“[You are complaining—it is unlike you.]”  
  
“[Maybe I’ve tricked you all into believing I’m actually competent, or your brother is getting on my nerves more than anticipated.]”  
  
“[I will go for the latter and offer my condolences for dumping Hanzo on you.]”  
  
She hummed, but didn’t say anything in response, picking at the leaves of her plant.  
  
“[He is more bearable when inebriated.]” Genji said.  
  
“[A funny drunk? I didn't take him for the type.]”  
  
“[Not funny, no. Just more bearable. He likes shochu.]”  
  
Rose doubted it, but she didn’t feel much like arguing, or straining her relationship with a friend by badmouthing his brother any more than she already had. Genji still cared about him, after all.  
  
“[I'll keep that in mind.]”  
  
Genji made a noise of approval on the other line.“[You two should talk, maybe it would make him less…him.]”  
  
“[I have tried, he does not wish to speak.]” She watered the plant, sprinkling water over it with her fingertips before drying her hands. “[He has a phone now, the most expensive one on the market—I’ll send his number to you.]”  
  
“[Ah that is—]”  
  
The pause was a thoughtful one. Genji may have said that he had forgiven Hanzo, had moved on. But rebuilding that relationship was still a project that would take time. Rose pursed her lips.  
  
“[You can text him random lines of emojis.]”  
  
“[—tempting.]”  
  
“[Isn’t it? I sent him the magnifying glass, but he didn’t respond.]”  
  
“[I am unsure which is more interesting, the fact that you send my brother emojis, or that he sees them and cannot come up with a response.]”  
  
She smiled into the receiver. “[Any advice?]”  
  
“[On emoji usage or Hanzo?]”  
  
She allowed herself to laugh. “[I’ll let you guess—and don’t ask Lucio for help, I know he’s listening.]”  
  
There was a beat of silence, Genji doubtlessly moving away from the speaker of his phone before answering. “[He says emojis, but he does not care much for Hanzo either, so I will say Hanzo.]”  
  
“[See? I knew you were the smart brother.]”  
  
Genji’s tone turned serious. “[You have to push him. If he is not pressured, he will not change his course.]”  
  
“[Is that what you’re trying to do?]”  
  
“[That is what I am suggesting for you to do,]” he dodged the question.  
  
"[Hm, interesting.]"  
  
"[Is it?]"  
  
“[It’s just...a lot.]”  
  
“[Your apprehension is not unwarranted. It is simply my way, Rose.]”  
  
“[I understand. I will try…pushing.]” She didn’t understand, and she had been trying to ever since she left New Orleans. Why Genji kept trying, why he was able to let go so easily. But maybe that was a lesson she should try to learn herself. She fiddled with her sleeve.  
  
“[I will send you texts from now on. Should anything arise, you know the code we established.]”  
  
She nodded, despite him not being able to see.“[Please send emojis, or they won’t be any fun.]”  
  
“[What do you take me for? An average cyborg ninja?]”  
  
Another smile.“[Never that.]”  
  
“[Goodbye, Rose.]”  
  
“[Bye, you two.]”  
  
She ended the call with a decisive click.  
  
She remembered when she first drew blood, the man’s veins were tiny and she had had to readjust twice before the IV was set-up correctly. When it flowed, no one had congratulated her for doing the bare minimum, but the pump of life beneath her had been enough at the time.  
  
It wasn’t nearly as rewarding the next time.  
-  
  
  
She found him sitting at the bar.  


“Hotel liquor isn't as nearly as strong as you think it is.” She said, pulling up a stool next to him. “They dilute it, you know.”  
  
He didn't respond, just took a long sip from his scotch.  
  
The rest of the bar was empty and quiet, the last drink call ending in a few minutes.  
  
Rose hailed the bartender over with a sweet smile. “Mint Julep, please.”  
  
The attendant placed her drink on a coaster in front of her and moved away quickly, probably to clean up in the back.  
  
“I wish to drink alone.” Hanzo finally said. His back was slouched toward the counter, his shirt already straining from what looked like multiple washings and ironings.  
  
She shifted in her seat. “As you did when we were in Los Angeles, and San Diego. Atlanta shouldn't be a surprise either, hm?”  
  
He glared at the contents of his glass, but said nothing.  
  
She had given him plenty of space, hadn't really wanted to be around him, but the fact remained that she had tried. He was barely meeting her halfway, and she was tired of faltering. Genji was right, she had to push back.  
  
She took a long swig from her drink, the mint biting against her lips and tingling against the back of her throat as she swallowed. She had a feeling he wasn't the type to start apologizing, either.  
  
She sighed, lowering her glass to the table. “We're not working well together. ” She said without looking at him.  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him turn to her and she was sure if she looked at him he would have that one obnoxious brow raised as if to say: ‘no, really?’.  
  
She licked her lips and ignored it. “If we don't learn to, then this whole thing will have been an even bigger waste of time.”  
  
She took his silence as an acceptance, if not an agreement. She took another sip from her drink. She would take what she could get.  
  
“What do you propose?”  
  
She tried not to look surprised at him finally speaking, but it bled through her features. Her reaction exasperated him and he was about to retreat back into himself again before she spoke.  
  
“More of that—speaking I mean,” she placed her drink on its coaster. “I need to know what you’re doing, what you’re planning—I know you’re used to working alone, but I can’t read minds.”  
  
“Not even with your magic?” he muttered.  
  
She took a breath, forced herself to bite back a caustic reply. “No, not even with magic.”  
  
He considered his drink before him, she watched him watch the condensation on the rim of the glass as he steeped in his silence.  
  
The bar attendant closed down for the night, giving a firm nod in their direction before retreating into the back kitchens.  
  
Silence buoyed between them as the sound of the door closing faded.  
  
“I need more clothes.”  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
He sighed, clearly annoyed at having to repeat himself. “The shirts you gave me are not enough for our travels.”  
  
She thought of the two crisp white button-downs she had given him two weeks ago, thought of him constantly unpacking and packing the ironing board in their hotel room and making them late. He wasn’t doing it to spite her.    
  
She pressed her fingers into the bridge of her nose. “You haven’t gone clothes shopping.”  
  
“I do not have the funds to do so.”  
  
Her brow creased. “I thought you were a mercenary before this.”  
  
He shifted in his chair, uncomfortable and annoyed. “Overwatch drained my funds before we left.”  
  
She didn’t miss the underlying bite in his words. Genji doubtlessly had something to do with it.  
  
He had taken part in illegal business, so of course they had seized what he had after taking on his case, but still, this was clearly personal. Push indeed.

She licked her lips before finishing off her drink. “I don’t mind if you meditate in the mornings, I will do my best not to bother you. However, using the bathroom for that purpose for hours is tiring.”  
  
“Understood. I do not enjoy having to step over numerous potted plants in the living area.”   

She sighed. “I’ll move them to the balcony. Anything else?”  
  
He looked as though he had a plethora of other things to say, but he forced his mouth to close. Progress. He shook his head.  
  
“Truce, then?”  
  
He nodded. “Yes.”  
  
She got up from her seat and left a tip underneath her glass. “I will see to it that the plants are moved, then. Goodnight.”  
  
“One more thing.”  
  
She stifled a sigh before turning to face him again. “Yes?”  
  
“I do not understand the picture you sent me.”  
  
“Picture?”  
  
He took out his phone from his front pocket, showing her the one-way conversation between them. A magnifying glass with a question mark and the _‘Read 11:45pm’_ , floating beneath the grey bubble.  
  
“It’s an emoji—a magnifying glass. I wanted to know if you had found anything.”  
  
He scrunched his brows together. “You could not have just typed it out?”  
  
She tried not to think on how he had survived the mid 21st century without using emojis, but didn’t dwell on it for too long.  
  
“It’s easier that way, think of it like an encrypted message.”  
  
He raised a brow, but it was less aggressive somehow, more of a quirk than something innately negative. “Very well.”  
  
Rose let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in.  
  
It was a start.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta: http://erothreep.tumblr.com/

* * *

 

After years of hiding and drifting in and out of seedy bars and seedier alleyways, Hanzo was unused to being out in the open again. He shifted under the bright florescent lighting and pushed his sunglasses, “their disguises” further up his nose.  
  
His eyes shifted from the clothing between his fingers to Rose’s face, curious but otherwise unreadable. Hanzo had difficulty admitting to himself that she was hard to understand. She did not mask herself with blankness or neutrality like others he knew, instead, she used a veil of friendliness and propriety. She was not happy often, he could tell that much. She smiled constantly as if she were, but it never reached her eyes.  
  
He refocused on the shirt, and frowned at how thin an unpliable the fabric was. He moved on to the next store.  


"What are you looking for, exactly?" She asked.  
  
He resisted the impulse to say ‘clothing’, as they had agreed to be more cordial with one another and Hanzo had no interest in engaging in more hostilities. She had been correct that they had to work together to accomplish their task, and there was little point in feuding with her over small things. They had a break between her next stop on her tour and would be in Atlanta for a week’s time. She had suggested they get the shopping done then. The timing made sense, some of her questions did not.  
  
"The material is insufficient," he said instead.  
  
"Why is that?"  
  
He stopped to face her, eyebrow raised.  
  
“I am very—”  
  
“Ah—”she began, eyebrows raised. “Bulky.”  
  
She seemed earnest in her reply, but he did not appreciate the descriptor.  
  
He took a breath.“That is one word for it.”  
  
He was not certain if she was joking or if the offhanded remark had been meant as an insult. With her frequent use of emojis, he leaned toward the former.  
  
"What about there," She said before walking off without telling him where ‘there’ was. This too he was becoming accustomed to.  
  
  
\--

“You are wasting money,” he said, his voice strained, barely holding back his discontent.  
  
“We talked about this,” she sighed, lifting several shirts up to his form before deciding against the plaid. “You need clothing, and would it kill you to be more specific?"  
  
He took in a breath, fighting back exasperation. “All of these will need to be tailored, which will cost you more money overall.”  
  
“Are you implying I’m not good with money?”  
  
Again, he could not understand her intentions with such a declaration, but he forced himself to examine her demeanor. To peel back the smile she always gave him and read her actions for what they truly were.  
  
He saw anxiety in the way she kept folding the discarded shirts despite the clerk taking them from her and doing it himself every time. Her eyes shifted to take his in, examining his reaction. She was trying too then, her own form of humor, he surmised.  
  
“Kidding,” she finally said, confirming his suspicions. The tenseness from his form alleviating somewhat.  
  
“Have a better idea, then?” she asked, continuing the main line of their conversation.  
  
“A store that specializes in formal wear will offer tailoring at a reduced price, possibly for free.”  
  
“Do you know of any?”  
  
“I never shopped for myself when I was younger.”  
  
He immediately regretted revealing that small snippet of himself to her. She simply looked at him, her face unreadable again before her smile widened—it seemed more genuine this time.  
  
“You and Genji were that spoiled, then. Why does that not surprise me?”  
  
“With the way Genji dressed, it was probably for the better.”  
  
She blinked at him, caught off guard perhaps. “Was that a joke?”  
  
He remembered Genji’s fluorescent green hair, the carrot orange scarf he was so fond of wearing. Recalled the companions he associated with, equally flamboyant and unreserved. There was always at least one man or woman on his arm, or both, as he laughed much too loudly in the arcade. The bright lights of the games he played often bouncing off his already too colorful clothing. The imagery made Hanzo uneasy. A Genji unmarred from his  hands, content and happy before Hanzo ruined it, and him.  
  
He realized he had not answered.  
  
“No,” he finally said.  
  
It seemed almost too personal to admit that it had been. She had not known Genji before he had…changed. There was no need in bringing it up, referencing a time and a side of Genji she had never seen and never would see because of him.  
  
She looked down and away from him, perhaps disappointed, unsatisfied? He could not decide.  
  
He checked the prices of the shirts and shook his head, the numbers starting to add up and then falling apart, unable to make the transition from thought to formula.  
  
\--  
  
His family often called Genji the dreamer, the sparrow who flew well past his limits, but Hanzo had been drifting for as long as he could remember. In and out of the clouds, the numbers folding and de-materializing from the page into something abstract and wholly more understandable. They called him a whiz kid, and when he got older: a numbers man. He knew he was a dreamer however, and he dreamt in equations and formulas.  
  
His memories of home were seen through a veil of frosted glass, vivid enough to remember but vague enough to forget. They ate one another like carp, one memory leading to another, an endless stream of recall.    
  
He was reminded of the man whose finger he was to cut off; a rite of passage to torture a traitor for information. In the moment before the cut, he remembered his mother asking him to kill a fly on the wall the day prior.  
  
Its wings were loud against the stillness of the room. It buzzed even louder as Hanzo approached, tatami sighing underneath his feet.  
  
It was a middle finger, the joint cut cleanly, precisely—45 degrees even. He had already lost two fingers before this, given up when he had failed to produce results. He would have none by the time Hanzo was finished with him. The man had groaned on the table as Hanzo had cleaned his knife.  
  
Hanzo did not cry, not like his brother had, did not even flinch. He was too busy thinking of the fly, the red eyes sinking under his fingertips when he had crushed it.  
  
Eventually the man's buzzing had stopped. It always did.

\--  
  
One of worst parts of losing Genji, Hanzo had found, had been losing count. Before he had left, he had not been able to keep track anymore. Of the offshore bank accounts, how many of them were on the streets, the next move in the stock market—they all fell apart. The numbers nonsensical and vague as if they never meant anything to begin with.  
  
He liked to think he had gotten better, liked to think he had stacked and ordered his thoughts like they once were, but it was not the same.  
  
Even now, as the tailor at the next shop called out numbers to he and Rose, he felt them bounce off his skin and drift down to the soles of his feet. He was not able to process them. When he heard inches being called out, the sounds of loading rounds into a gun came to mind instead.  
  
By the time he was finished, Hanzo had barely processed a word he had said. He managed to pick a style, but other than that could not find it in himself to take in the reality around him. He clenched and unclenched his teeth.  
  
The tailor went about his business in the next room, leaving them in the front of the store. The sound of shouting snapped him back to reality.  
  
He watched as several people started gathering at the glass storefront, peering in to look at Rose. The number of them was growing by the second, but he wasn’t able to keep track of how many.  
  
Rose typed something in on her phone and he noticed his own buzzing at his side but didn’t bother picking it up.  
  
The man returned with the clothing and Hanzo vaguely heard Rose deal with the price of the garments but the crowd was still growing.  


“Sunglasses can only do so much,” Rose said in reference to her fans at the window, her purchase in hand. “Ready to go?”  
  
He shook the fog from his mind. Business took precedence. “Out the front seems a bit…tenuous.”  
  
“There’s always a back door, dear,” she stretched open her hand. He remembered their last contact, the buzzing that had thrummed in his ears the last time she had tried grabbing him.  
  
“It doesn’t hurt,” she said.  
  
He did not bother correcting her assumption of his thoughts, merely offered his arm for her to grip onto.  
\--  
  
Hanzo did not believe in magic in the sense that Rose had described.  
  
The dragons on his arm had been different. In his eyes, he always believed them to be some type of guiding spirit—ancestral in nature. Supernatural, yes, but magic seemed to slice the meaning of them too thin. But perhaps Rose had been right, maybe he should have begun believing her sooner.  
  
New life could be created with technology, bodies rebuilt, and DNA broken down and built up again. Hanzo had watched the weapon market grow at his doorstep in Hanamura, watched the shipments of weapons change in nature, in size, and had made sure to familiarize himself with the different types of sundry available to him and his clan.  
  
He knew technology, which was why he knew when Rose “disappeared” with him in tow, it hadn’t been a farce like he had once assumed.  
  
They traveled, but stayed where they were. The world around them shifting and bubbling, his mind humming trying to make sense of the experience. It felt as though gum was tacking and un-tacking itself from the base of his skull, the world they were in a brief flash of white and nothing before they were deposited in the mouth of an alleyway.  
  
“Breathe through your mouth first,” she instructed.  
  
Hanzo found that he had no choice but to listen, his body still trying to catch up with the rest of him. When his heart rate finally slowed and his breathing became normal, he pushed himself up and away from the alley wall.  


“Are you all right?”  
  
An unnecessary question, but still he nodded.  
  
“Let’s get back before they follow us again.”  
  
They moved quickly through the alleyway, Hanzo forcing himself to keep up despite still feeling winded.  
  
“Are your fans that dangerous?” he asked as Rose pushed her sunglasses up her nose.  
  
“Not particularly. One or two is usually fine, but when it’s a crowd they tend to get... handsy. I’d rather avoid that, if you don’t mind.”  
  
“Understood.”  
  
Silence, as they continued to walk. Rose’s heels clicking loudly against the uneven pavement. She glanced at him.  
  
“The first time disappearing is always a bit hard on people, we won’t do it again if you don’t want to.”  
  
“It is nothing.”  
  
She gave him a long look, the type that Hanzo was beginning to dislike with how well she was able to read him. She said that her magic did not allow her to read minds but still, he was unsure.  
  
“All right,” she said. Hanzo did not believe that she thought it was ‘all right’, but appreciated that she dropped the subject.  
  
The alleyway was dark, and far enough away from the main streets that they would not be seen. It was also a bad place to be pigeon-holed into.  
  
As if on cue, someone stepped out from the shadows, blocking their path. A woman, above-average height, eyes bright blue as she looked at Rose with something akin to wonder. “Wow, you’re really the real deal, aren’t you?”  
  
Hanzo was wary of the stranger, and Rose seemed to share his sentiment as she gave the woman her reserved smile “I try.”  
  
“Don’t we all?” she laughed. “But truly, I thought it was just tech at first, but you really do disappear. Maravilloso!”  
  
Hanzo resisted turning to the mouth of the alleyway. It would take seconds to run to it if need be. He felt his dagger move in his pocket as he shifted his feet to a more balanced stance.  
  
“Magic is what we make of it. I’m glad you enjoy my work, my dear,” Rose said, still smiling.  
  
“Could I have your autograph? If you don’t mind?”  
  
The woman approached, energy coursing in her eyes as she moved to grip Rose’s hand.  
  
Hanzo stepped in front of her, eying the woman cautiously. The weight of his dagger heavy, he could feel the seconds it would take to flip it open and slash open the woman’s throat. His body coiled, ready to reach for it, when Rose placed her hand on his arm.  
  
He forced himself to reel in and reevaluate when he saw the way she was smiling. The buzzing that accompanied their touch was loud in his ears, and Hanzo forced himself to uncoil as Rose released him.  
  
“Excuse him,” Rose apologized. “It’s been a long day, and fans haven’t been on their best behavior, unfortunately.”  
  
The woman turned slowly to regard Hanzo, an inquisitive look on her face that nearly looked as fabricated as Rose’s smiles.  
  
“He’s new. Where’d you get him?”  
  
Her focus on him made Hanzo uncomfortable to say the least. Her eyes had the same effects as Rose’s, an ability to peel at a person until they were left bare.  
  
But unlike Rose, she did not bother hiding it. Her stare unrelenting as her eyes shifted from Rose to Hanzo.  
  
“I’ve been looking for a bodyguard for quite some time. Hanzo came to us, and was the perfect fit when we needed him,” Rose said.  
  
Her lie was a good one. Vague enough to be altered at any given moment and true enough that there was solidity to her statement.  
  
The woman did not seem all that convinced but she smiled all the same. “I won’t do anything like that to hurt you. I’m a huge fan, after all.” She placed her hands on her chest, over her heart, as if that made it more meaningful.  
  
Rose’s smile faltered by the tiniest of margins. “I appreciate that.”  
  
The woman extended her scrap of paper to Rose and a pen for her to sign it. Rose gave her a neat smile before her hand danced across the page, her signature seminal and vibrant.  
  
Rose turned to leave, but the woman’s voice stopped them.  
  
“You—” she pointed, purple nails bright in the dark of the alley.  “You’re powerful. People like you can change the world.”  
  
She stepped closer, but was again hindered by Hanzo’s presence. She smiled and stepped back again. “My boss would love to have someone like you with us. To support those in need and make this world a better place.”  
  
She rifled through her pocket for something and Hanzo stiffened again.  
  
She laughed. “Relajaste, big guy. It’s a business card—super scary, I know.”  
  
Rose stepped past Hanzo to take the card. Paper, a rarity these days and also an extension of trust. There was little chance for it to be a bug.  
  
“I am still on tour, but I will do my best to support your organization—”  
  
“RESOLVE. We have a charity gala coming up this weekend, hope to see you there.”  
  
Hanzo watched the woman and Rose exchange the last of their pleasantries and goodbyes. When the woman walked away, Hanzo felt his body unwind. To his side, he could see Rose’s hand shaking over the card.  
  
She looked at him once before covering one hand with the other, hiding the brief stint of weakness.  
—  
  
After they had returned Rose had retreated to her room and called the front desk for something or other. Hanzo straightened out his new clothing and put them in his suitcase and closet. Afterwards, he checked for bugs. He hadn’t found any, and the card Rose was given was actually paper. It was odd for trust to be extended to them so openly.  
  
Still restless from their run-in in the alley, Hanzo tried to focus. His room had no balcony, the windows locked from the outside, so he sat in the living room to unwind instead. The bathroom abandoned in accordance with their détente. The only window was cracked open, the sound of the wind stabilizing him as he sat on the floor.  
—  
  
It was dark when he came out of his trance, and when Rose popped back into the room she had changed into more comfortable clothes. Long white dresses were her preference, he found, and her curls were loosed from their usual style.  


“I was right,” was all she said as she went into the kitchen, rifling through the cabinets.  
  
He opened one eye. “About?”  
  
“The lights the other day,” she said from the other side of the room. “It had to have been them scoping.”  
  
He opened both eyes for a second before settling back into his position on the living room floor. “A lucky guess.”  
  
He tried to reorient, to settle amongst the many plants she insisted on bringing with her—at least they were no longer everywhere—but he could still feel her hovering by the door.  
  
“Will shochu change your mind at all?” she asked.  
  
He turned to face her. She had two bottles in her hand, both clear.  
  
“I’m a hard liquor kind of gal, but I won’t begrudge you for having a sweet tooth.”  
  
His brow creased. “I do not have a sweet tooth.”  
  
“That’s not what Genji said,” she smiled and it was warm again, making the jab less pronounced. “It’s a small victory,” she continued, placing two glasses on the coffee table.  
  
“What is?” he asked, not objecting as she poured him a glass before pouring her own.  
  
“Me being right, of course.”  
  
He shook his head. “Now I see why you and Genji are friends.”  
  
Her lips crinkled as if to laugh, but it was held back by her usual smile.  
  
“Very funny.”  
  
“It was not a joke,” he said before taking a sip, the wine well aged and sweet on his tongue.  
  
“Sure,” she took a drink out of her own glass. Her drink looked and smelled different than his, but Hanzo could not tell from her facial expression if it was strong or not.  
  
“Speaking of, I’m surprised he hasn’t sent you a string of emojis yet.”  
  
His brows crinkled together.  
  
She stopped mid-sip. “He did, didn’t he? You didn’t realize it was him?”  
  
He fished his phone from his pocket. “He sent me three dragons, a rainbow, and an eggplant. Hardly decipherable or indicative.”  
  
She looked over his shoulder, brushing against his arm as she looked at his screen. “Huh. I guess that means you need to send something equally undecipherable back.”  
  
“I am not sending emojis.”  
  
“Try a few more cups of wine and see if you change your mind.”  
  
“Should a medical professional really be condoning drunken stupors?”  
  
She wagged her finger at him, more expressive then she usually was. “Not a doctor, remember?”  
  
She raised the bottle to the rim of his glass and he didn’t stop her from pouring him another cup. She went to pour her own and he stopped her, before returning the favor. She raised a brow but otherwise said nothing and began drinking again.  
  
—  
  
“Everything about you is too serious.”  
  
He looked up at her with a raised brow. The statement bolder than what he was used to from her. She was on her sixth glass of what she called ‘moonshine’. An amalgam of troubling proportions from what she explained of it. He was by no means in better shape, the bottle of shochu she had gotten him nearly drained.  
  
“You had to have a nickname even if you didn’t know what it was.”  
  
He shook his head. “If I did not know what it was, then it was hardly a nickname.”  
  
“Your subordinates didn’t call you anything?”  
  
He downed the rest of his drink.“By my title.”  
  
She poured him another at his behest, before toying with the contents of her own. “You’re very stern, tactical, precise, temperamental, bulky…”  
  
“Bulky again?”  
  
“In a good way—it’s always a good thing.”  
  
He did not know how to respond to that, simply refilled her drink at her prompting even if they both did not really need anymore.  
  
She looked briefly to the TV when the announcer shouted. She had turned to the wrestling channel early on in the evening, and Hanzo hadn’t complained. A man was currently trying to fight his way out of a sloppy choke hold.  
  
“Did you have a boyfriend?”  
  
Hanzo nearly spit out his drink.  
  
“You are quick to ask personal questions to someone you barely know.”  
  
“That’s why I have to ask them, it’s an ice-breaker. You can ask me weird questions if you want.”  
  
“I would rather—”  
  
“Come on, there’s no way you’re straight,” she smiled.  
  
“You assume this why?”  
  
“Because I’m not either, I can tell. Plus, you didn’t answer the question.”  
  
“That is not proof by any means,” he dodged.  
  
“Does looking at the dick print of pro-wrestlers count, then?”  
  
She was annoyingly observant, even when drunk, but he did not dignify her with an answer. She refilled his glass and he grumbled under his breath.  
  
“Who doesn’t look at them, honestly? They’re quite the sight.”  
  
The comment caused him to crinkle his brow. “You said you were not—”  
  
“I’m bi,” she said, looking to the television again as if she had just commented on the weather.  
  
He nodded, a bit at ease with this information. “Likewise.”  
  
She looked at him sideways before looking away again. Whether or not she had suspected that, she didn’t say.  
  
Another drop of information about himself, but this time he was too inebriated to care what she thought. His own sexuality had been hidden behind doors upon doors of tradition and expectations. He could deal with one versus the other when he was expected to marry, because it had not mattered to him then, both had pleased him. He had never told Genji, or any of his family, for that matter. Having more in common with his rambunctious and irresponsible younger brother was not something he had been proud of.

But she did not seem to care, and why would she? Hanzo knew money could buy plenty of company—he allowed himself to take in her profile when she turned to the television again— not that she needed money to convince much of anyone.  
  
“Bear,” she said, suddenly breaking him out of his thoughts.  
  
The alcohol made the realization hit a minute later than it should have. Again, he said nothing, just drained his cup.  
  
“Your nickname—It was Bear, wasn’t it?”  
  
“He was not a boyfriend.”  
  
“Oh wow, now we’re getting somewhere.”  
  
He sighed, she was quite loquacious when she drank, but her smile unrolled a bit more when she was like this. It was easier to read her, easier and something else.  
  
“So did you go out places?”  
  
“On occasion.”  
  
“That’s dating.”  
  
Rankled, Hanzo placed his drink on the table. “I have found a likely nickname for you as well.” He traced the space in front of his mouth.  
  
Her smile increased by the smallest of margins. “Okay. I’ll admit I was ‘Lipstick’, if you admit your beau called you ‘Bear’.”  
  
Her eyes were bright, her chin leaning on her palm, more relaxed than he had seen her for the three weeks they had been traveling together. He indulged her.  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“See? We have more in common than you think.”  
  
“I suppose.”  
  
“You still need to send Genji a reply.”  
  
He was well past tipsy and considering it. He looked at his phone on the table, black screen reflecting his face. He picked it up, thumbing the button on the side of it and sparking it to life.  
  
He noticed an unread message above Genji’s, from Rose:  
  
_5’8”_  
_Body Length: 30”_  
_Chest Width: 46”_  
_Shoulder width: 19”_  
_Waist Width: 40”_  
_Bottom width: 43”_  
_Sleeve Length: 25”_  
  
The measurements lined up neatly in his head, the numbers not falling apart as they usually did as of late. He looked up to her to find her yawning and distracted by the next match on television.  
  
He switched over to Genji’s message and keyed in a few of the emoticons before hitting send.  
  
\--  
  
The hangover was not as bad as he thought it would be. It was still bad when he woke up to darkness and it felt too bright, but still, it was bearable.  
  
When he ambled into the living room, searching for painkillers, Rose was already awake and meditating by the window.  
  
The incense wafted in through the open door, her body bent forward and swaying as she sat. Her hair was wet and sticking to the nape of her neck, her clothing not as neat as it usually was—wrinkles riddling about her waist. She probably woke to a headache, as well.  
  
Hanzo ordered from the front desk and was surprised at the extent of their customer service. When they arrived with the items he requested Rose moved into the living room, curious.  
  
He stirred the matcha into a cup of hot water, the persimmons already neatly arranged on a plate.  
  
“Hangover remedy?” she asked, turning from her spot on the balcony.  
  
He nodded, nearly nonverbal with how badly his head hurt. The order for room service had drained most of his energy.  
  
He set aside a cup for her, the plate resting on the kitchen counter.  
  
She did not move to take it, not immediately. He considered that she may have still been wary of him. It did not bother him, should not. He focused on chewing and drinking instead of the looks she may have been giving him.  
  
His phone buzzed in the other room, much too loud in the quiet of early morning.  
  
When he went to check on it another message from Genji floated onto his screen.  
  
His previous message was on top. He had sent a bullseye, a bow and arrow, and a die.  
  
Genji had replied with words this time.  
  
“[How predictable.]”  
  
Hanzo’s eyebrows creased, as he keyed in his response. “[What does that mean?]”  
  
Genji responded with another string of emoticons, this time a coffin, several Z’s, and a skull were his means of communicating.  
  
Hanzo was about to reply, questioning his choice when Genji beat him to the punch.  
  
“[You two got smashed didn’t you?]”  
  
Hanzo knit his brows together. “[That is untrue.]”  
  
“[You sent me emojis.]”  
  
He paused, then decided to use Rose’s reasoning. “[Because you sent an incomprehensible message, I had to reply with one.]”  
  
“[Sounds like something drunk Hanzo would do.]”  
  
“[Why did you tell Rose what I liked to drink?]”  
  
“[Avoiding the question, also a drunk Hanzo move.]”Another pause as Genji continued to type. “[But, if you must know, you are a bit more tolerable when drunk.]”  
  
Hanzo squinted at the screen, Genji had often told him this when they had hit the drinking age. Falling over each other and laughing in bar after bar on the days where responsibilities were far from both of their minds. That time had not lasted very long.  
  
“[I assume you heard of our invitation?]” he dodged.  
  
“[Yes, Rose told me.]”  
  
“[Then we should keep communications such as these minimal.]”  
  
The sign that Genji was typing went on for several seconds.  
  
He finally replied: “[Practical.]”  
  
Hanzo could almost hear the disdain and intonation from the Genji he once knew. In written form, it was just as pronounced.  
  
He began typing several messages in reply, but finally stopped. What could he say in response? Perhaps distance was better for the both of them at this point in time. It was something he was skilled at maintaining.  
  
“[Did you drain my bank accounts?]”  
  
His headache only worsened when he thought back on the moment he realized all the money he had embezzled before his fleeing the clan was now gone.  
  
The flash of zeroes hadn’t registered as strongly as they did now.  
  
Another string of emojis came after a minute of waiting. A demon mask, the poop emoji, and a magnifying glass his only response.  
  
He knew from his conversation with Rose what the last one supposedly meant.  
  
“[I will take that as a yes.]”  
  
“[My duty and my burden. Right, brother?]”  
  
Hanzo read and reread the message, he blinked at the use of his own words against him. Genji had always done so when they were children, much to Hanzo’s consternation. The feeling of it happening again after so long felt strange, as if he were dipping his toes into lukewarm water.  
  
He could not find it in himself to respond, so he set aside his phone for the moment. There was no use being angry for what Genji had done. The dismantling of their clan had been an order he was given. Just as Hanzo was given an order to confront his brother, so had Genji been given an order to gut their clan and make off with the money Hanzo had holed away. The same pit in his stomach, the one that had opened up in during their first confrontation, grew, and the longer held onto his phone, the deeper it became.  
  
He left his phone on the bedside table and left the room.  
—  
  
Rose had eaten most of the persimmons and was taking her time with her tea. “You must get drunk often, because this combination really works.”  
  
She was eyeing him from across the counter, her eyes brighter and more alert.  
  
He took his own tea from the counter, then, “Not as much as I used to.”  
  
She raised a brow. “Did you speak to—”  
  
“Let us establish a written and verbal code. The gala is in two days' time.”  
  
She eyed him for a moment, the reaction to her question brusque, less cordial than what they agreed upon. This time, however, she let it slide, her features settling back into the cool, collected demeanor she wore so regally.  
  
“All right.”  
  
Again, he knew it was not, but he did not say anything else on the matter and neither did she.  
  
“There is little time.”  
  
She nodded and grabbed a notepad from her bag.  
  
The incense from across the room extinguished itself and they got to work.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

 

 

Nothing in life was free.  
  
Rose learned this from a young age, when she had dug in the dirt and used worms as currency with her only friend across the bayou. Learned when her mother had hit her hands with a large wooden spoon when she had stolen potted plants from a neighbor's porch. Hers had died the night before and she had been desperate. The cost was sore knuckles and an even sorer pride when she had had to return them.

Gardening would come to her later in life after many cuts, scrapes, and dirtied blouses.  
  
People found it easy to marvel at things when they didn’t see the blood that went into it. Seeing the cost of things sapped out what little magic was left in the world.  
Rose figured that was why people continued to come to her shows, not because technology couldn’t do what she had done with her craft, but because the mystery of ‘the how’ hadn’t been unveiled. The magic hadn’t been stripped away and laid bare before those who saw her.  
  
She knew nothing came without cost, without trial and error. Which was why she was patient as ever with her oft belligerent roommate.  
  
She watched him from the threshold of the bathroom struggling with his necktie. She could tell by the way he held the fabric that he had never learned to do it himself.  
She was patient, would push as Genji had told her to do, but she could still find humor in the mundane things, too.  
  
She was ready and they had plenty of time to spare, but still—  


“Did you need any help?” she asked, already knowing the answer.  
  
“No.”  
  
She stepped into the bathroom to watch him fumble with the red fabric for the fifth time before she intervened.  
  
She grabbed the fabric from him with a patient smile. His hands jumped away from hers, his body slumping as she wrapped the tie neatly around his neck.  
  
“Let me guess, spoiled Shimadas had their ties tied for them?”  
  
He grunted as she adjusted it. “I dislike wearing them.”  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
“Why do you know how to tie one?”  
  
“I wear suits during my shows,” she smiled a bit wider. “The audience likes a change of pace from time to time.”  
  
He had nothing to say to that, merely watched her make the final loop with the bright red fabric. He looked good, she had to admit, his shoulders and arms accentuated by the neat cut of the suit he was wearing. She frowned at the thought.  
  
“You know there’s this great tool called Google, ever heard of it?”  
  
A pause.  
  
“Remember our means of communication. I am unsure if I will be by your side for the duration of the evening,” he said in lieu of a response.  
  
She was getting used to him doing that, avoiding conversation that irked him when she pushed maybe a bit too far.  
  
“We went over it a hundred times,” she finished tying the knot, pushing it up his neck. “I think I can handle it.”  
  
He said nothing in response, simply readjusted his tie, making it looser on his neck.  
  
They had managed to create an amalgam of both their mother tongues to create a unique code between the two of them. Hanzo was a perfectionist, which was something she expected, but the intensity of their practice had left her drained. He already spoke French, so transitioning him to Creole words hadn’t been too difficult. She had needed a bit more guidance with the Japanese words he chose as code words, however.

It still needed work, but their main means of communication would best be communicated orally, and if not, encrypted. He was careful about everything, nothing he did without purpose. It was as admirable as it was intimidating.  
  
She looked at him. It was also a bit sad. How much of himself was stifled behind a veneer of duty, she wondered.  
  
“You know I was kidding, right?”  
  
“One of your less successful jokes.”  
  
She crossed her arms, though by now she knew better than to get irritated at him for being, well, him. “Be nice.”  
  
“I do not like googling things.”  
  
“ _Things_ ,” she air-quoted. “What kind of things? And why not?”  
  
He raised a brow at the gesture, before adjusting his tie once again in the mirror. “I did say that I did not like paper or digital trails.”  
  
“No one is going to harangue you for googling dress code procedure.”  
  
“Hmph, another joke.”  
  
She wiped at invisible dust on her dress, hiding a smile. “Depends, was it better or worse than the first one?”  
  
She mimicked his often-used gesture and rose a brow at him as he squinted at her.  
  
“Worse.”  
  
She shook her head and huffed out a laugh.“Tough crowd. What was one of my better jokes, then?”  
  
He rolled back his shoulders. “We should head out,” he said instead.  
  
He busied himself with arming his person with weapons while Rose waited by the door. His bow was too large and attention-grabbing for the venue they would be attending, so hidden knives and guns were his second choice.  
  
Little needed to be said for what kind of foes they could be facing, and Rose was glad that for once she didn’t need physical weapons to defend herself.  
  
That too had come at a cost.  
  
-  
  
  
She hadn’t needed to dress up in quite some time and hadn’t bothered getting another gown than the old black one she normally wore on formal occasions. It was too tight on her neck and she regretted not buying another when she had been out with Hanzo. Her chest and ribs felt constricted and too close under the pull of the silk, stifling in the already hot room. For once, she longed for her stage outfit. Then at least she would have a means of fanning her too-hot skin.  


“Why are you giving me that look?” she asked him.  
  
“You look uncomfortable,” he said still staring.  
  
She watched as his eyes drifted down the length of her body and she pretended not to notice. “It’s because I am.”  
  
“Is the performer not acclimated to this kind of stage?”  
  
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him, as they were approaching the gates to the event.  
  
“At least I know how to tie a tie.”  
  
He didn’t respond, but she thought she heard a chuckle behind her. She didn’t turn to look and see.  
  
Various members of the elite: donors, businesswomen, and the occasional dignitary walked briskly by Rose, looking for their respective seats.  
  
Hanzo quickly blended in with the crowd and left her side. As they agreed, he would set up a point to watch the room and aid the security already present at the event. She hadn’t even noticed him leave. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised at him being able to do his own job, but it was impressive nonetheless.  
  
Rose found herself nestled in a table that was surely too full, bumping elbows with an older woman with a name card that read: _Mrs. Sato_. No other markers or titles were on her placard, or any of their placards, really.  
  
Rose greeted her with a smile. The woman smiled back, albeit a bit reserved. There was something about her that rang familiar, but Rose couldn’t place it. She shifted her eyes to the silverware to keep from staring.  
  
“You must be Mrs. Laveau, a pleasure to finally meet you.”  
  
“Ah, my reputation precedes me,” Rose smiled.  
  
“Indeed it does. I am Rina Sato, a benefactor of RESOLVE for three years now.”  
  
“It’s good that they are reputable then, I wasn’t sure what to make of my invitation,” Rose said.  
  
Hanzo and she agreed that she would tell only half-truths. Speaking her mind at the beginning and reining in her concerns later. She would have to earn their trust, and in order to do that, she had to pretend that they should earn hers.  
  
Mrs. Sato simply smiled. She didn’t seem to care, but for those overseeing their conversation, Rose wanted to sell her act.  
  
_Reel the crowd in, make them wait for the big reveal._  
  
“Yes, I was apprehensive at first too, but they have proven themselves to be quite the organization. I even receive letters from the children in Rio I sponsor.”  
  
Rose smiled, but felt her heart drop. Those children most likely didn’t exist, but how could Rose tell her that?  
  
She felt her phone buzz and excused herself from the conversation to check her purse.  
  
Hanzo had sent several messages in their established code.  


[Talk to others at the table, do not cement yourself to one person.] _21:24_  
  
[Make sure not to eat too much of their food once it is served. Poison is a possibility.] _21:25_  
  
[Several other guards are drinking and I am unsure what to make of it.] _21:36_  
  
[Security being this lax could be a sign of trouble. Stay on guard.] _21:38_  
  
[The food looks poorly made. Not poisonous in the traditional sense of the word.] _21:42_  
  
She shook her head, before typing out a response.  
  
[Don’t be a worrywart, I’ll be fine.] _21:45_  
  
A moment passed and the sign that he was typing appeared and disappeared several times.  
  
Finally, he replied: [“A good fight should be like a small play but played seriously.”] _21:46_  
  
There was no need for a code for quotes.  
  
She shook her head. She couldn’t decide if quoting ancient movies was better or worse than him grumpily ignoring her. Worse still was that she understood what he was referencing.  
  
[“When the opportunity presents itself, I do not hit. It hits all by itself.”] she replied before placing her phone in her purse again.

—  
  
Hanzo had been right about the meal. It was terribly bland and uninspired, though calling it poisonous might have been a bit dramatic on his part.  
  
Rose idly chatted with others at the table to learn what she could.  
  
Those around her were all successful and kind-hearted people, and all of them were being scammed into believing Talon’s lies. Doctors, lawyers, professors, and scientists all had a burning hope in them that they were doing the work that needed to be done. It was eerie how many people were supporting this so-called organization. From the reports Genji gave her, they weren’t even five years old.  
  
Although those that were supporting them weren’t well known themselves, either. It was a smart move, keeping their membership pedestrian. Or as pedestrian as the wealthy could be.  
  
Most here were established enough to give. Savvy enough to wear three-part tuxedos, but obscure enough that this event wouldn’t seem abnormal to a casual paparazzi.  
Still, the question remained, what had convinced them so thoroughly? And if these people were on the fringes of the known and unknown, why had Talon decided to hand-pick Rose for this event? She was hardly obscure. She had had to sneak here to avoid being followed, and she was sure someone would eventually learn of her presence amongst her ranks, so why would they want her?  
  
She was roused from her thoughts by conversation to her right.  


“This will be your first time hearing the chairman speak, right? He’s incredible, one of the most inspiring people I’ve had the pleasure of listening to,” Mrs. Sato said.  
  
“If only words could feed us properly,” Rose said with a soft smile.  
  
Mrs. Sato let out a short chortle. “Ah, but there is always sustenance in words, they feed a different part of us.” Before Rose could respond, a chime rang out throughout the hall and everyone’s chatter died down.  
  
The chairman, as Mrs. Sato had called him, walked onto the stage. He was a wiry man with gaunt, gaping eyes. The way he strut to the podium was reminiscent of a soldier's march, his body strong-looking despite his age. He gripped the podium in his hands, scanned the crowd with smiling eyes, and without precursor said: “If you live to help, you are in the right place.”  
  
Rose looked around to see eager and smiling faces take in the man before her.  
  
On closer inspection, his eyes were red rimmed, the kind that didn’t develop from a lack of sleeping. They seemed impossibly wide as they swallowed everyone under their gaze.  
  
“I won’t speak long about the nature of giving and what it entails,” he began. “The good-hearted already know all about altruism and why they do what they do.”  
  
His eyes continued to scan the room, locking eyes with several in the audience, including Rose, before moving on. “We, all of us in this room, know that it is when you give yourself that you truly begin to work.”  
  
Rose clasped her hands together underneath the table. Flesh over metal to make sure her tight grip wouldn’t hurt her.  
  
Hoodoo, and by proxy, healing, was always an act of give and take. You had to be able to fully put yourself into the work, to devote your life to the craft or become lost otherwise. You could give and give until you vanished and still you had to be all right with this fading and allow yourself to succumb to it.  
  
Those around her clapped intermittently, but Rose found she could no longer hear them.  
  
—  
  
When she had first disappeared, it had been an accident.  
  
Her mother had told her of the ancestors and the world they inhabited. Spun stories about how her energy and magic flowed from that world and informed theirs. Like everything her mother told her, she took it with a grain of salt—understood it, but didn't think of its physicality.  
  
She certainly never thought she could visit it.  
  
She had been running from the rocks and stones of the more violent children. They had taken to chasing her lately. There was joy in hurting those weaker than they, and Rose had been a small child.  
  
The deeper she ran through the bayou, the more of them lost their footing in the swampy bits of land and turned back.  
  
Hidden in a caved-in tree, she clutched her arms and rocked against the wood, hoping, praying they wouldn't find her.  
  
Hoping that she could be anywhere but here, hoping that she would disappear.  
  
And she had.  
  
Space moved, time shifted, but her body stayed where it was.  
  
She couldn’t breathe, but she felt whispers sing across her skin and reverberate through her bones, could feel a hand grab hers and lead her back to herself when she felt herself grow faint and weary.  
  
When she came out of it, she forced herself to breathe through her mouth. Her lungs were icy and she had felt as though they would have frozen over had she stayed any longer.  
  
She was in front of her home, but hadn’t remembered how she got there. The children were gone and so was the sun. The thin sliver of moon rested above her.  
  
Hours had gone by in the span, and Rose had run the few steps home to tell her mother what had happened.  
  
“Keep those voices close to you,” she had said. “Someday they will want something.”  
  
‘ _Yes_ ’, Rose had thought, ‘ _Because nothing in this world is free_ ’.  
  
—  
  
People were clapping again, louder this time, and Rose felt herself numbly clap along, coming out of her memory only marginally. She felt her phone buzz in her purse again but didn’t move to answer it.  
  
The chairman had gained momentum during the parts of his speech Rose had missed, emboldened by the fervor of his audience.  


“What if we could stop wounds before they appear, could make death nary a thought until its natural progression, what if we could make a world where we don’t see children die prematurely from war and famine?”  
  
All plausible thoughts Rose had thought of herself, but that’s all they were. Thoughts, ideas, dreams.  
  
However, people continued to clap. Rose wondered briefly if she had stumbled into a Baptist church and not the charity ball for a terrorist organization. She looked around at those around her, how enraptured and tied to each and every word they were.  
  
The chairman bellowed one last line.”The world doesn’t need heroes, we need healers.”  
  
The crowd rose around her, endless clapping echoing in her ears. Rose numbly stood to join them to not look suspect. But even if she hadn’t needed to, she might have stood anyway.  
  
The thought scared her.  
  
This was how they kept relevant, kept themselves abreast of the hero worship the whole world was still recovering from. Their derision, however slight, gripped people, spoke to their inner fears and desires. Who needed Overwatch when we have ourselves? A sentiment everyone in the room seemed to share.  
  
  
Donations were to be written anonymously. Everyone at their seats with their eyes on their own checkbooks. Rose licked her lips, and tucked away the guilt and nervousness that had only heightened after the speech. She knew that she wasn’t actually donating to Talon, knew that Overwatch would clear her of all affiliation once they were taken down, but still she felt guilty, culpable somehow.  
  
The number she wrote down was sizable, sizable enough she hoped for another invitation back.  
  
When she walked down the stairs of the event hall, Hanzo was there waiting for her. His non-expression only heightened with his sunglasses still on.  


“Glasses indoors, really?”  
  
He ducked down to her ear. “Members of the Shimada clan may be present at this event. Until we establish a bond of trust, I would rather not be immediately recognizable.”  
  
Rose forced herself to smile, tried to chase away the cold she still felt. “So it’s not just so you can pretend to be cool?”  
  
Hanzo cocked his head to the side, perhaps hearing the lack of feeling behind her jibe.  
  
“Are you—” He cut himself off and straightened his posture.  
  
Rose turned to see the chairman walk over to her.  
  
He was taller than her by a sizable degree. The way he leaned over her, hands crossed behind his back, smile firm and unyielding, only added to the sense of dread in her.  
  
“So glad you could make it, Miss Laveau, an honor.”  
  
He gripped her hand in his own, the gesture friendly in nature, but the same unease she had felt all evening raced up her arm. Nerve endings chilling at the touch.  
  
“The honor is mine, it was a pleasure to hear you speak.”  
  
He released her hand and Rose felt her body sigh.  
  
“And for that I am glad.” He paused, adjusting the fit of the glove on his right hand before continuing. “I know our means of recruiting you were rather...eccentric, but we did want to keep your membership a secret. For your sake and ours.”  
  
Rose nodded, as smiling was wholly impossible at this point. “No one enjoys having fans and camera in their face if they can help it.”  
  
“I’m glad you understand.” The chairman smiled, the pleasure of the gesture not reaching his eyes. The same debilitating numbness from when he touched her permeated throughout her whole body, and Rose forced herself to look down and away.  
  
“O-of course.”  
  
She felt Hanzo at her side, heard him speak in her ear in their established code and felt herself nod.  
  
“ _Are you alright?_ _”_  
  
People gave off bad feelings, bad energy, all the time. It was worse in crowds where ill intentions ebbed and flowed between one person to the next. Her crowds were often a miasma of intentions, and whether they were good or bad, the show must go on—she couldn’t let it bother her.  
  
The chairman’s smile grew wider as she forced herself to meet his eye.  
  
Finally the smile she had fought so hard for sprung to her face.  
  
“I look forward to hearing you again, if possible.”  
  
The chairman nodded slowly. “I look forward to seeing you soon, then,” he said before walking off. The intonation in his voice denoting expectation. He knew they would see each other again.  
  
Rose took a breath and finally directed her gaze back at Hanzo.  
  
He looked level, but maybe the glasses were keeping the unease from telegraphing so clearly on his face like hers had. He looked as if he was about to say something again, when a loud laugh echoed nearby.  
  
Mrs. Sato grabbed Rose’s arm.  
  
“How did you enjoy the speech? Invigorating, wasn’t it?”  
  
She was all smiles and was a bit grabbier than she had been at the table. Rose attributed this to the amount of wine she had imbibed. Her own security stepped behind her, ready to catch her should she fall and succumb to her overindulgence.  
  
Rose maintained her smile. “Yes, very much so. I hope Chairman Sachs will do what he says he will with my donation.”  
  
The older woman smiled a bit wider. “Still a skeptic, are we?”  
  
“It’s hard not to be with so many mountebanks in the recent years.”  
  
Many organizations had leeched off of Overwatch’s downfall, promises of better tomorrows and freedom from the omnics was easy enough to preach when people had already lost their hope. They clung to whatever strong minded force came at them, the world still unstable after the explosion, one that had been heard across the world.

‘ _Here is what happens to corrupt heroes_ ,’ it seemed to say.  
  
“Maybe coming to another event would cement your interest,” she said.  
  
Rose forced herself to draw back. Acting too eager this early would still be unwise. “Perhaps, but there is the tour to consider, I’ll be in New York next and then it’s off to Philadelphia and England—”  
  
“Ah, what a coincidence. There will be another event held in New York, a ball, if I’m recalling correctly.”  
  
Rose felt her smile drop but forced it to reassert itself. She did not want to think about dancing in any capacity. “Oh, that sounds—”  
  
“Do make sure to be there, dear. My people will contact you.”  
  
She released her grip on Rose, and true to form, her security kept a hand at her back guiding her to the exit.

  
“Your people?” Rose called to her.  
  
“You’ll know them when you see them!” she yelled.  
  
Her “people” as it were led her away, arms supporting her all while keeping their distance at the same time.  
  
Rose spotted a circular tattoo on one of their hands as they led her to her car, that of an ouroboros: a snake swallowing its own tail. The man with the tattoo looked back at them, a long scar skating around his neck giving him a rather mordant appearance.  
  
Once he turned around, Rose felt Hanzo grip her shoulder and lead her away as well.  
  
“Hanzo, what are—”  
  
“A moment.”  
  
She let him lead her outside, far from the hustle and bustle of the crowd. To the curious onlooker, it looked as though he was doing his job. Leading her away from crowds and cameras that may have been peering too closely at the event.  
  
Once they were in the car and a good distance away from the event, Rose turned to him.  
  
“Do you mind telling me what that was about?”  
  
He settled in his spot next to her in the car as the autopilot turned on, taking them back to their hotel.  
  
Hanzo didn’t answer, searching the seat cushions and floor for something Rose couldn’t see. Finally, he took out a bug and crushed it in his hand before rolling down the window and flinging it outside.  
  
“The man you saw, with the tattoo, I killed him while I was in New Orleans.”  
  
The words reached her ears, she processed them, understood them, but clearly she was missing something. “What?”  
  
He rose his brow as if he hadn’t just stated the impossible, as if Rose was arguing him about his clothing again and not about someone once dead coming back to life.  
  
The idea was frightening to her in a way that she couldn’t properly voice.  
  
“When?” she said instead of asking the same question again.  
  
Hanzo almost seemed sympathetic, his voice taking on a less harsh cadence. “The man I asked you about after I woke, he was my most recent target. I had felled him before you found me.”  
  
Rose shook her head. “You must be remembering wrong, lightning at that range can drastically—”  
  
“I am certain. I still have his bounty amongst my belongings.”  
  
When they got back to the hotel he showed her, the hologram of the man they had just seen, the same face, eyes, and tattoos. The only difference being the scarring along his neck, which is where Hanzo must have struck him.

“Does he know who you are? Your face?” Rose asked.  
  
“I made sure not to be seen until I shot him. He was losing consciousness and dying by the time I reached him. I hit a vital.”  
  
Rose was quiet as she sat on the couch, dress still too tight and itching against her skin.  
  
Death, life, and all that lie in-between had a delicate balance with one another. To interrupt that, to bring someone back—Rose had certainly thought of it. When she was younger and had missed a neighborhood pet that had gotten hit by a car she had thought of it, but the price had always stopped her. It always seemed impossibly high, especially now.  
  
“What was the bounty for?”  
  
“Illegal trade, trafficking, identity theft, grand theft auto—the list was long, I did not pay it much mind.”  
  
Long enough to give him a bounty at least.  
  
She rubbed her prosthetic and shook her head. “I’ll update Genji on this. I’m not sure where we go from here.”  
  
Hanzo nodded but didn’t retreat back into his room like he usually did. He stood at the threshold of his doorway, staring at her.  
  
“You are troubled.”  
  
She looked at him.  
  
“You said in order to become a better teammate that I should speak up more often. Your being distracted does not bode well for either of us.”  
  
“Thanks. I think.”  
  
He rose a brow as if to prompt her.  
  
“It’s not just the man—well it is, in part, but—the things I heard at the gala tonight… I think the chairman was right about the world needing healers.”  
  
“So it does.”  
  
“But they’re not on the front lines like they should be, metaphorically speaking—” She sighed. “There’s just so much scarring, not enough growth.”  
  
“Some scars are lessons that bear repeating.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
She played with her hair.“It just seems the longer people keep fighting, the less they understand. If you keep picking at a scar and reopening the wound, when will it have time to heal?”  
  
He shook his head and walked over to the couch, sitting in contemplation for a moment.“It is natural to want to fight, to struggle—it is human nature to do so.”  
  
“Is that what you really think?”  
  
He didn’t look at her. “Yes.”  
  
“I don’t think it is.”  
  
He gave her a sideway glance, mouth turning downward.  
  
“Genji said you came on this mission to gain a pardon from Overwatch, to absolve your crimes. But I think you do want to help, Hanzo. Even if you don’t say it.”  
  
He frowned deeply. “I tire of you presuming my thoughts.”  
  
“I don’t mean—”  
  
He stood and was suddenly in her personal space. The pact of civility between the two of them temporarily broken.“And what of your involvement? Why did you agree to this if you have turned down involvement with Overwatch in the past?”  
  
Rose was tired—of pretending, of smiling or acting as if any of this was normal. And maybe Hanzo was too, perhaps he was lashing back in the only way he knew how at questions that dug too deep, questions that she, too, had denied asking herself.  
  
“I told you this already, to help people,” the lie felt habitual and saying it felt like a betrayal, more so than the sharpness behind Hanzo’s words.  
  
Hanzo eyes tightened, but he took a step away from her. “If that were the case, you would have rejoined years ago,” he snapped.  
  
The silence buoyed between them and Rose let it cotton her ears until she could stand it no longer. She stood to face him, back straight.  
  
She thought back to her taking Genji’s offer in the first place, what it meant that she had done so.  
  
She looked Hanzo in the eye as they squared each other up. He wasn’t willing to back down from his question, he wanted an answer and Rose could almost feel the hostility that would emerge if she didn’t.  
  
He had met her halfway, and she had to do the same.  
  
“You’re right. I would have.”  
  
He seemed to reconsider his anger at the admission, his shoulders relaxing by the tiniest iota. “Then why?”  
  
She let out a weak laugh, a forlorn smile making its way onto her lips.“I’m trying to find the answer to a question. I haven’t found it yet.”  
  
“You thought this mission would give you that answer?”  
  
She thought of the first time she joined Overwatch, how ready she had been to meet equally brilliant and strong-minded people. She thought of those that she did befriend, and, for the first time in a long time, she thought of Ava.  
  
“To some extent,” she said instead.  
  
The room felt too cold, and she felt too open, as if her prosthetic was still a wound gaping at her side. As if her former paramour was still there beside her. It was that unbearable kind of quiet and neither of them was moving.  
  
“I didn’t mean to presume,” she said. “I don’t mean to nag you either, it’s just—” she shrugged, rubbing her bare arms.  
  
He turned to look at her, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She could finally understand his fascination with the carpet.  
  
“Genji really cares about you, so if there’s any presumption on my part, it’s from a concerned friend.”  
  
She turned to enter her room when he didn’t respond.  
  
“I—” he started.  
  
She stopped, her hand on the handle.  
  
“—appreciate the concern.”  
  
She didn’t quite know what to say to that, the words transparent in a way that he normally wasn’t. He must have seen the look on her face, the barely hidden surprise, as he quickly schooled his expression and posture back into the strict nonchalance that he employed in response.  
  
He nodded, a bit lost at what else to do with himself and finally retreated back into his room.  
  
  
She had been accused of always looking out for everyone but herself while enlisted. Always mothering other’s small injuries and making sure those around her were as safe as possible. She hadn’t thought she mattered in that way in the bigger scheme of things, hadn’t seen her happiness as something worth pursuing when she could be helping, healing, doing what the world needed.

The first person who asked her if she was ‘okay’ had been a girl with gold flaxen hair. She had smiled at Rose, held her hand in hers and waited eagerly for her answer.  
  
Rose lifted up her hand, the metal reflecting the soft moonlight from outside her window. But even that question, coming from Ava, had had a price tag.  
  
Now there was a second: Hanzo’s voice from the party echoed in her ear softly as he asked after her well being and again just minutes ago.  


‘ _Are you all right?_ ’  
  
She closed her eyes, sighing. Rose wondered what she would have to pay this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a reference to Enter the Dragon in there if anyone was interested what movie they were quoting. Hanzo's a goddamn nerd and no one can convince me otherwise.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

 

 

Rose was never one to be caught unprepared.  
  
While on tour she brought everything she needed for her craft with her, to the great consternation of her manager. People that worked for her often needed the strangest things, her aloe vera plants used for a rash that had broken out amongst some of her dancers. Her stock of candles a lifesaver when they stayed at the more rural hotels, their electricity not as guaranteed.  
  
The conversation with Genji, too, she had been prepared for, ever since she sent news of their findings to him the other day, he had sent her several encoded messages filled with details about the man. His most recent crimes, appearance, and medical history. He hadn’t been checked into the hospital, so Hanzo’s theory that he was the same man still rang sound. Which was, in and of itself, unsettling.  
  
She had been prepared for his pensive silence when they exchanged notes the morning before their flight and she had also prepared crossword puzzles, headphones, and music for them.  
  
Hanzo had raised his infamous brow when she presented him his “flight kit”.  


“The music helps with the noise before takeoff, and the crossword takes your mind off how far up in the air you’ll be.”  
  
Still, he didn’t say anything as he took the items in hand.  
  
“A peace offering,” she said.  
  
She thought he would continue with his stoicism as usual, remind her that he had already flown several times now, press her that their flight was boarding and that they should get on. Instead, he tilted his head, almost curious, before saying:  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
She blinked twice. He was definitely getting better with communication, at least.  
  
As they were walking through the small tunnel that led to the aircraft, Hanzo managed to fill in three blanks on the puzzle.

She wondered idly if he’d gone to prestigious colleges, if he graduated at the top of his class only to return back to the family business. He had the bearing of an academic, the gait of someone who had seen the ivory halls and had reveled in them.

In another time, when Rose was younger and getting used to the unfairness of life around her, she might have been jealous. She had always liked school, had always wanted to learn more and more. But, like him, she supposed, familial duty came first.

Still, she watched him fill in the blanks with ease and smiled to herself.  
  
“How did you travel to other countries if you didn’t fly?” She asked, eying him.  
  
His pen paused on the pad she had given him, his concentration temporarily broken. “I have never had to leave Japan, others would fulfill tasks for me abroad. As for my recent travels here, I prefer boats.”  
  
He wrote another answer in as they boarded the plane.  
  
Rose hummed but didn’t say anything more, the man in front of them nearly dropping his handful of items and scrambling to pick them up.  
  
Once they got to their seats, Hanzo lifted their two carry-ons in the overhead and took his spot by the window, a lot more at ease than he had been on his first few flights.  
  
Rose eyed him carefully. “You took a cruise ship, didn’t you?”  
  
He placed his pen on the service tray and looked almost offended as he answered. “There were few options and the least indulgent of them involved being cargo.”  
  
It was the first time he seemed almost embarrassed by his affluence and Rose bit back a smile as she looked at him.  
  
“I don’t know, with the track record for your sweet tooth, I’m inclined to believe you just wanted fruity cocktails.”  
  
She could feel him glaring at her through his sunglasses, but it wasn’t completely malicious. He did continue with the crossword after all.  
  
  
“What’s a seven-letter word for omnic?” He asked after they had taken off.  
  
She was already tired, something about planes always enervated her. The lack of rocking, the stillness of the air, the hush of the cabin as central air breezed on and off above her fellow passengers. Everything was suspended, the feeling that the world had stopped for the allotted time of their flight making itself known. That she hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep as she would have liked after last night probably wasn’t helping matters, either.  
  
She stifled a yawn. “Um, android?”  
  
“I tried, it does not fit.”  
  
She hummed in response. The air-conditioning hissed above her and she shifted it on her, already too hot. “Knowing those puzzles it’s probably not the best wording. Try machine.”  
  
He grunted and began writing something on the paper. Her ears latched onto the sound and she let it lull her further into sleep, allowed herself to close her eyes.  
  
When she woke, her neck was cramped from struggling to keep her head propped up and she was still too hot.  
  
Everyone else on the plane was already dozing, even Hanzo had closed his eyes, puzzle already completed and put aside. She thought of what awaited her in New York, bright lights and an even brighter crowd. Daydream met subconscious and her eyes were soon closed again. She felt her head bump into Hanzo’s shoulder, but he didn’t shift, didn’t wake up, so she didn’t bother moving. His jacket was pleasantly cool and she allowed herself to sink into him and fall into a blank slumber.  
  
—

Ava had been refreshing in her nonchalance. The future was something she had thought about but she had never let it weigh her down. She was a young woman who lived in the now and did so unabashedly. Rose had been concerned by her gung-ho approach to life on more than one occasion.  
  
They were returning to base camp, the whole squadron’s limbs tired and aching. The transport they had was destroyed on its way to them and walking had been the safest option. Rose herself had several calluses from the trek and a crick in her neck garnered from an explosion she hadn’t seen from the corner of her eye. She would have to ask a nurse to check for a concussion, but in order to do that she had to get back to camp.  
  
Ava had spotted a small lake on their way back, hidden by a fan of leaves and vines—a treasure in the otherwise murky and thick waters of the bayou.  
  
Before anyone else in the squadron could react, Ava had stripped off a majority of her clothing and cannon-balled into the water. She hadn’t checked for the depth or toxicity of the water like Rose might have, just let her want take over the reasoning side of her brain.  
  
The water was luckily deep enough and Ava treaded, laughing as she swam. Her hair already shrinking up due to the exposure to the murky lake.  
  
Rose had thought it ridiculous at first, but soon others joined Ava and Rose became the only one standing still clothed. The hot, muggy Louisiana air had been suffocating, and the call of the water was much too tempting.  
  
Ava hadn’t said anything, just looked at Rose with bright, eager eyes. They often played a game of uncle with things like this. Would one give into impulse, or to logic? It was fun to see what the outcome would be.  
  
Rose hated being hot, she justified every stripped piece of clothing with that reasoning and dove right into the water alongside Ava.  
  
They found each other when she resurfaced, the water cool and lapping at her chest. Her face had grown hot when Ava got handsy beneath the water.  


“You only live once,” Ava had said, sneaking a kiss before starting a splash war amongst the rest of the troops.

Rose had rolled her eyes at the old saying, Ava had a fondness for the early 21st century in a way that Rose could hardly understand. Maybe that’s what informed her logic and lack thereof. Rose often felt like she belonged to a different time. Long white dresses, root magic, and herbalism, conservative and strange to a world that was brighter and faster than it had ever had been.  
  
Rose had liked to think that’s why they had ended up together, they were anachronistic drifters, coming together so that time and space made sense to them. And things had made sense to Rose back then, the pieces all fit together.  
  
Now, she had lost them all, the puzzle much too grand and impossible to solve.  
  
—  
  
She shifted against Hanzo’s shoulder when the lights to the aircraft turned on, indicating their landing. She was slow to open her eyes, but when she did he was looking down at her, a curious look on his face.  
  
It took her a minute to process that she had actually slept on him, the boundaries of personal space broken due to the lapse in judgment sleep often provoked.  
  
She covered a yawn with the back of her hand as she sat up. “Sorry.”  
  
He shook his head at her side, rubbing his neck, likely sore from her having pressed her weight onto him, they were still close enough that his shoulders bumped into hers with the movement.

Rose wanted to maintain space between them, but they were already too close together. The proximity of the plane prevented her from doing so. Besides, she had already broken his personal bubble by sleeping on him. She resisted apologizing again, and tried to stop thinking about how firm his shoulder had been.  


“It is nothing,” he said.  
  
But there was a lightness to his voice as he said it, a teasing mien she saw on his face that made her bite her bottom lip.  
  
She saw the beginnings of a smug grin threatening to break on his face before he covered it with his right hand.  
  
“What’s so funny?”  
  
“I am not laughing.”  
  
“You’re smiling, same thing.”  
  
She tried pulling at his arm to move his hand away, but he wouldn’t budge, so she didn’t remove her hand either.  
  
“I am not smiling either,” he said, eyeing her hand on him before lowering his.  
  
He was smiling. Rose hadn’t been sure what that would look like from someone like him. He was always so stern, so careful with how he presented himself that she wasn’t entirely sure where to fill in “happiness” on his proverbial crossword puzzle. Although, it wasn’t unpleasant.  
  
She blinked when she realized she was staring.“Your version of a smile, then.”  
  
He made a sound denoting agreement and amusement at the same time. His arm twitched against her hand as he contemplated hiding his face again, his smile growing wider. “You are a lot more talkative than I gave you credit for.”  
  
“What does—”  
  
The realization dawned on her slowly and she covered her face. As if sleeping on him hadn’t been bad enough she had to speak to him in her sleep as well.  
  
She closed her eyes and leaned against her chair. “Don’t say anything.”  
  
“You have done enough for the both of us.”  
  
“That’s—”  
  
Before she could respond properly he stood up, passing over her to get their bags from the overhead. He was trying to get past two women helping their child into the carriage, so for a few seconds he hovered over Rose. She eyed the stretch of his shoulders, the small dimples in his jaw that appeared and disappeared as he clenched and unclenched his teeth.  
  
His tie brushed against her shoulder when he finally moved.  
  
She cleared her throat as she gathered her things. She was still tired and the plane was still much too hot.  
—  
  
Rose was never unprepared, but the prepared couldn’t rely on themselves all of the time.  
  
It was why she got a manager in the first place, to sort out all of her venues and contracts with vendors for her. Trusting others to do their job was another form of preparation. Unfortunately, her manager had a habit of procrastinating, and said habit had reared its ugly head during the most popular tourist seasons of the year in the most popular city in the country.  
  
She would be sure to give Michel a piece of her mind when she saw him next. Summer meant more audiences, yes, but it also meant more competition. Several concerts and events were often lined up back-to-back, making it hard to get a good spot for the season.

She always asked Michel to book their hotels ahead of time, but that didn’t stop “mistakes” from happening. He had a bad habit of leaving their accommodations to the last minute, the last second if he was able, which was what he had done for her show in the city. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if several concerts and a movie premiere hadn’t been on the same weekend.

She sighed into her phone as the fifth hotel explained to her that they couldn’t house her entire entourage due to this, that, or the other, and Rose felt even more tired.  


“What is wrong?” Hanzo asked, nearer to her than she anticipated.  
  
She had to force herself to calm as she let out a sigh. “My manager didn’t book the hotel early enough and there’s nowhere in the city that has enough rooms for my crew.”  
  
“I am starting to doubt why he has his job in the first place.”  
  
“Be nice. He’s a friend.”  
  
Michel had been the one to scoop her off the street of New Orleans and push her into the spotlight. His mother had been a conjurer but he hadn’t been interested in pursuing the craft himself. Marketing for Rose was the ‘next best thing’ as he liked to put it.  
  
“Friends rarely make good business partners,” he said.  
  
She tilted her head as she wondered if he was speaking from the seemingly endless experience he had with matters such as these. With the way his eyes wouldn’t meet hers, she took that as a yes.  
  
She shook her head. “Regardless, we’re going to have to split up my party. We’ll have to find a room somewhere else, the rest of my team can stay here and in a hotel across the street.”  
  
“It is odd that you would give your staff rooms ahead of yourself.”  
  
“You know me, heart of gold, self-flagellating, philanthropist,” she shook her head to herself.  
  
She had never felt comfortable staying somewhere if everyone was not accommodated. It was easier for her to find a place with her connections. Besides, none of them needed to be punished for a mistake that was her manager’s anyway.  
  
“One of your better jokes,” Hanzo said.  
  
“What makes you think I’m joking this time?” she raised a brow.  
  
“There are more apt descriptors.”  
  
“Oh, and what might they be?”  
  
He leaned down to her ear. She was a little distracted with how close he had gotten, how his voice had thrummed against the right side of her body, how warm his breath was next to her face. She forced herself to reorient and focus on what he had said:  
  
“Pharmacist.”  
  
She took a half step away, blinking all the while.“What?”   

“Red pill or blue pill?”  
  
It finally dawned on her and she sighed. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?” She was trying not to smile, trying to look stern and serious because she didn’t like being teased, and it wasn’t really all that funny. The tremble of her lips as she bit them, looking up and away from him told her otherwise.  
  
He was nearly smiling himself, but it still came off as smug and annoying. “No.”  
  
She turned away toward the door so she wouldn’t have to hide her smile anymore. “That joke was corny, so I’ll let it slide this time.”  
  
He followed her, keeping in step and undeterred. “Corny?”  
  
“I’m afraid so, also ancient.” She swallowed her laughter as she looked at his facial expressions unwind from neutrality to a clear bemusement. She had never noticed the almost translucent scar on his left cheek, but then again, they had never been close enough for her to notice.  
  
They were closer now. His sleeve brushing against hers as he passed her for the door.  
  
“Let us find a hotel that will take us, lest you fling anymore false accusations.”  
  
She shook her head as she watched him head out the door, strides confident as if he knew exactly where he was going.  
  
“Come up with better movie references, then!” She yelled after him.  
  
He didn’t respond but she followed him anyway as he led the way into the warm New York evening.  
  
—  
  
Forget giving him a piece of her mind, she was really going to strangle Michel, healer be damned, and hire a new manager like Hanzo had suggested. She would have to there was no other choice because—  


“The one bedroom studio is all we have available right now.”  
  
They had searched the entire city for a hotel for hours. Rose’s feet were aching and Hanzo was getting tired of shooing off the too-eager fans from her person. This place was a little pricier than what Rose usually allowed, but it had been the only opening they could find. A last-minute cancellation that they had jumped on as soon as Rose saw it online.  
  
She toyed with a loose curl at the base of her neck before sighing. “I guess it’s this or nothing,” she sighed. “One of us can sleep on the couch, I guess.”  
  
He raised a brow. “You say that as though you have not already decided.”  
  
“Ladies first, remember?”  
  
He hummed and just looked at her in a way she hadn’t seen before. Rose had not been able to place it, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She turned away, her eyes on the electronic form she had to fill out for their stay.  
  
“Studio” as it turned out, was a very flexible word. There was one bed and little else in the small room besides a television, two small armchairs, and a coffee table that could fit maybe two mugs on it without keeling over.  


“ _Haillons mie’ passe’ tout nu._ ” She sighed as she placed her luggage in the closet.  
  
“There is no couch,” he said, eyes darting to her and the bed.  
  
“Guess you know what that means,” she said looking at him, forcing a seriousness in her tone and face.  
  
She fell back onto the bed, duvet and covers shaping around her form as she did so, sinking deeper into the mattress.  
  
“That is unfair.”  
  
“Life isn’t fair.”  
  
“A disingenuous argument.”  
  
She sat up from the bed, weight pushed back on her forearms. “It’s okay, we can share.”  
  
“I am unsure if I can fit with you taking up more than half of it.”  
  
She breathed out a laugh. “I know that was a joke, and don’t deny it,” she said smoothing the covers down. “I don’t normally let corny men in my bed, but I’ll make an exception today.”  
  
“What kind of men do you usually let in your bed?” he asked, looking at her a bit too closely. The frankness of the question surprising her for a moment. She could see the beginnings of his version of a smile break out on his face. Another joke, then.  
  
She didn’t look at him as she spoke.“Ones who smile often.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  
“And who don’t knock over my plants at night.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
“And know how to tie ties. You know, the basics.”  
  
“I wager I am not on that list.”  
  
She smiled, wagging her finger at him. “Exception, remember? See how nice I am?”  
  
Tired after searching for a room all day, she thumbed off her heels and laid back against the bedspread.  
  
“I can sleep on the floor.”  
  
She breathed out a laugh. “That would be ridiculous.”  
  
She lifted her head to see him shift on the carpet, uncomfortable.  
  
“I don’t snore and I don’t steal the covers unless they’re stolen first—the perfect bedmate as far as I’m concerned.”  
  
He raised a brow at her statement, eyes still curious as the barest hint of a smile grew on his face. “I see.”  
  
She swallowed. “Anyway—”  
  
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, the tone she had set for Genji’s messages loud in the quiet of the room. She thumbed in her password and raised a brow.  
  
“Huh.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
She switched to their code. _“Turns out that Charity Ball we’re going to later this week has a bit of a history. Genji thinks there might be a complex beneath the building, he wants you to check it out.”_  
  
_"Why did he not send it to me?”_  
  
_”You never check your phone.”_  
  
Hanzo frowned before digging in his pocket for his own phone and his frown deepened when he doubtlessly saw the group message he had been added to.  
  
_"You should really put it on vibrate or something.”_  
  
He shook his head. _"It is no matter. Let us look over what he sent and craft a plan.”_  
  
She nodded and they spent the later half of the night going over the schematics Genji had given them, filling in whatever blanks with half-guesses and back-up contingent plans. Surveillance would have to happen before the event. They couldn’t go in off of building plans that were likely a few years old. Hanzo would go in undetected, scope out the area, and pinpoint an area worth exploring. Rose and he would then take whatever information they could while the ball took place.  


“There may be a problem with me blending in.”  
  
He rose a brow. “Why?”  
  
She played with her earring. “Well, I’ve never danced…formally before.”  
  
“You do not know how to dance?”  
  
“I do, just not with frilly dresses.”  
  
He frowned. “All you wear are frilly dresses.”  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
He scrunched his eyebrows together as if he didn’t. Either that or he was trying not to envision what kind of dancing she was familiar with. “I will teach you.”  
  
She placed her head in her hands, eyes searching his. “That’s generous of you.”  
  
“It is for the mission.”  
  
“Mhm.”  
  
They went back to looking at the schematics, but Rose’s mind was distracted. The idea of dancing in front of him was somehow embarrassing. The fact that they had walked all day with little to no rest wasn’t helping much, either.  
  
When Rose yawned for the fifth time in the same amount of minutes Hanzo put away the notes they had amassed.  
“You can shower first,” he said without looking at her.  
  
She pushed her hair back from her face. “We’re not done yet. Let’s go over it one more time.”  
  
“Your mind will be fresher come morning.”  
  
“Are you saying my mind isn’t fresh?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She yawned again, her body betraying her.“How mean.”  
  
He rose a brow and she sighed before heading to the bathroom.  
  
  
It wasn’t until she was undressed and had turned on the shower head that the reality of their rooming situation sunk in. She contemplated in the shower, much too long for her own liking. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t shared a bed platonically before.

During the worst of the breakout in Baton Rouge, they had to cordon off certain sectors of the sleeping quarters due to breakouts or something equally preventable had they been given better equipment. She remembered sharing beds with a heavyset woman who smelled like dandelions, and then another time with a hooked nose, frail nurse who didn’t share the covers and had cold hands.  
  
Besides, there were more pressing matters that required her attention. Like the infiltration they were planning and the dangers this whole mission was about to impose on them.  
  
So really, this was benign in comparison. They were adults. She had to keep telling herself that as she wrapped herself in her towel and left the bathroom.  
  
Hanzo was sitting in the armchair when she got out, eyes still on his phone, doubtlessly looking over the schematics again. He looked up briefly hearing the door open then again more intently, eyebrow raised.  
  
“Forgot my clothes out here, the bathroom’s all yours.”  
  
He rose a bit too quickly and the hotel room didn’t really provide space for two people to pass by the bathroom. The awkward shuffle lasted a few seconds at least, but not before Rose’s shoulder and hip brushed against him as he passed.  
  
Which also wasn’t worthy of note, really. The buzzing that normally rushed between them abnormally loud in her ears.  
  
She got dressed, tied up her curls in her scarf for the night and laid down, her back to the bathroom door.

She could hear him turn on the shower and the noise felt too close, too loud in the space of the suite. She sighed and forced her eyes closed. She had been sleepy just a moment ago, why was falling asleep now such an ordeal? She shifted several times, flipping over and then settling before repeating until she heard the water turn off.

She evened out her breathing and pretended to sleep as he opened the door.  
  
She could feel the light to the bathroom door flirt across her face and she forced her eyes more tightly together. He turned off the light and settled onto his side of the mattress, the dip of his weight edging Rose closer to him.

Rose knew they had used the same soap, but he smelled good, regardless. The leftover heat from his shower radiating off his body and making the covers too warm.  
  
She tried to even out her breathing as if she were sleeping, but every breath she took sounded too loud, too unnatural. He probably knew she was still awake too, as he was barely breathing beside her.

Tossing aside any pretense of sleep, Rose turned again, uncomfortable and already too hot under the hotel covers. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark and the streetlights skimming through the curtains bounced off of Hanzo’s back, which Rose just noticed was bare.

The expanse of his shoulders were littered with scars. Some so jagged and intricate that she was tempted to reach out and touch them, but she wouldn’t, shouldn’t. She should be sleeping.  
  
She turned away, on her side again, and let out a breath. She could hear the beginning of deep breathing from his side of the bed and finally her body allowed her to follow suit.  
—  
  
Ava’s hands were always too hot.  
  
Her personality followed the febricity of her blood. Equally scintillating and engaging.  
  
Rose hated how much they would sweat afterwards, how their bodies clung together and breathing seemed too difficult, too tiring to do. It was like being around the summer sun year-round, the energy leeching from Rose’s bones every time they so much as held each other's hands. But Rose had always wanted the sun, when she joined Overwatch she had been searching for hot-blooded people. And the universe, as beguiling and perplexing as she was, had given Rose exactly what she had asked for.  
  
She looked to her left to find Ava catching her breath, droplets of sweat gently racing down her breast with every inhale.  
  
When she turned to face Rose she was smiling, but Rose couldn’t read her eyes. There was always something untouchable there that she hid away.  
  
The sun was bright, bared all it could to the planets that surrounded it, but that often made it hard to stare at for any length of time.  
  
That’s how it was with her. Rose had looked away.  
—  
  
She woke up neither hot nor cold, an even temperature, drifting irenically across her skin. She sighed, pleased, and moved to turn over, but couldn’t.

Hands on her waist were keeping her from doing so. Her eyes shot open and she looked over her shoulder to find Hanzo still asleep behind her. The bags of his eyes lessened somewhat. He almost looked peaceful, the severe look of his face lessened when he was unaware.

Still, he was too close, his breath tickling her shoulders and neck and his hands still too firm around her. Rose felt her face flush. She swallowed, moving her free hand to shake him awake.  
  
He seized up for a moment before waking, eyes instantly alert to his surroundings and her. They sat for a moment looking at each other, neither moving. Finally, he spoke.    


“You kept twisting and turning,” he said, explaining the contact.  
  
She blinked. “Oh.”  
  
“You were also speaking in your sleep again,” he said. He didn’t look as nearly as amused as he did that time on plane, and he still hadn’t removed his hands from her. The buzzing wasn’t as nearly as loud—it was soft, nearly imperceptible.  
  
She yawned. “What, no early 2000s movie references this time?”  
  
He squinted before releasing her, but not moving away. “It was a late 90s reference.”  
  
She rolled her eyes before pushing herself up and off her side of the bed. She could still feel the imprint of his palms and fingertips across her hips. The pressure hadn’t been unpleasant. She shivered and convinced herself it was because of the lack of covers around her form.  
  
She heard him rise behind her, the covers hissing in the quiet.  
  
“Who is Ava?”  
  
She drew in a breath and froze. He had said she had spoken in her sleep again. She drew her hand across her face as she contemplated her answer.  
  
How to respond? It was a simple question, really. She could say she was a colleague of hers, or had been anyway. She could lie and say that she had been dreaming of their time at war together. He wouldn’t press her for more information she was sure, but she didn’t feel like lying to him. She wasn’t sure why or when that had become a priority of hers, she still barely knew him. And yet, the thought of him drawing away again made her uncomfortable. More than that, it would be cruel.

She licked her lips as she turned to face him, the space between them somehow larger than it had been the night before.  
  
“She’s my ex.”  
  
He tilted his head to look at her, considering. "I see.”  
  
“We should get ready,” she said, finally rising. She didn’t want to look at him.  
  
—

As it so happened, she didn’t want to look at him when they sat down for breakfast either. She felt too raw, exposed. The nerves across her body singing, her ears buzzing. This tidal wave of sensation drowned out his voice when he spoke to her across the table.  
  
She lifted her head, finally looking at him again. “What?”  
  
For once he didn’t seem exasperated when he repeated himself. “His name was Daisuke, we, too, no longer speak.”  
  
They held eye contact for a stretch of seconds, and within that time Rose saw the barest hints of vulnerability in his eyes. He was comforting her, in his own way. By giving a name they both had equal hold over the other.  
  
He looked away from her and back to his eggs.  
  
She nodded to herself and forced herself to finish hers.  
  
—  
  
The straps of her heels bit into her skin as she waited for Hanzo to get ready. She paced in the small amount of space they were afforded in their room.  
  
She tried convincing herself it wasn’t a big deal. He was teaching her this so things would go smoothly the following night—that was it. When he entered the living area, loose black button-down fitting much too nicely around his shoulders and chest, she tried to tell herself not to look.  
  
Failure never felt so rewarding.  
  
“Are you prepared?” he asked, rolling up his sleeves.  
  
Her eyes drifted to toned forearms, shifting up and away as she stood to face him. Music from his phone was playing and she tried to focus on that, tried to breathe,  
tried to perfect her posture as she stepped nearer to him.  
  
“Yes,” she replied.  
  
She took a breath as he stepped into her swiftly, and she let him invade her space just as he had told her earlier. The top of their bodies were nearly pressed against each other, and already she felt too warm in her own skin. The feeling from the earlier that morning came back tenfold, the déjà vu of sensation making her ears ring.  
He brought his right hand to her back, his fingers warm against her exposed shoulder blade. His left hand grasped firmly in her prosthetic one that immediately made her self-conscious of it in a way she hadn’t been before.  
  
“Place your left hand on my shoulder.” He said softly.  
  
She nodded and followed his instruction, she could feel the muscle shift underneath her hand as he began to lead her across the room.  
  
She tried her best not to stare but he made it difficult, his attention on her as intense as it was. His hands were gentle as he held her, coaxing her with his thumb when she nervously misstepped. It was...distracting.  
  
“Again,” he said after the song had ended and began looping again. She nodded and moved into him once more, his hand lower on her back than it was when they started.  
  
She let him correct her when the distance between them became too wide, and when her steps were too loose and her turn hadn’t been as precise. Never too harshly, which she appreciated, but regardless, he was a strict teacher.  
  
“You must relax into it and match your steps to the beat.”  
  
Easier said than done. This was hardly a beat in Rose’s opinion. Beats made her whole body thrum and shake, not stiffly shift from one space to another. But he was taking the time to teach her, which was necessary for the mission, but also kind of him in a way he normally wasn’t, like this morning. So she didn’t complain, simply nodded her head and listened to his advice as they continued through the afternoon.  


She thumbed off her heels after an hour and a half of waltzing and collapsed onto one of the small chairs that they had pushed aside. “I’ve decided ballroom is terrible and I want no part in it.”  
  
He breathed out a chuckle and handed her a glass of water before sitting opposite of her. “I am inclined to agree with you.”  
  
“But you’re so good at it.” She rubbed at her feet idly, red blossoming where the heel strap had been.  
  
“Just because I am capable does not mean I enjoy it.”  
  
“Hm, so what made you learn?” she took a sip from her bottle.  
  
“My mother.”  
  
She tried to picture what his mother might look like, an amalgam of both Genji and Hanzo’s features she was sure, but her imaginings ended there.  
  
“Why did she want you to learn?”  
  
“One of the many social niceties we were forced to adhere to.”  
  
“So, Genji and you both know how to waltz and...what, know every fork placement known to man?”  
  
To his credit, he didn’t ignore her comment, merely raised the quintessential brow. “Not every fork placement, Genji was better at that than I.”  
  
“Was that a joke?” She smiled, already knowing the answer.  
  
“It was not _not_ one.”  
  
“Enough with the double negatives.” She groused, pushing at his shoulder playfully. He didn’t shrug it away and her hand rested on him a moment too long before she pulled it away.  
  
She cleared her throat. “Tell me more about Mama Shimada, was she as strict as you are with dancing?”  
  
“I am hardly strict.”  
  
She gave him a level look. “Hanzo, you corrected my foot placement because it was 1/8” off.”  
  
“It was 1/4” off, and my mother would have taken out a ruler to prove it.”  
  
“You’re impossible.” She shook her head laughing.  
  
“Another ‘ _thing we have in common_ ’,” he air-quoted.  
  
She already regretted teaching him that.  
  
She smiled, shaking her head, and found him looking at her when she turned back to him. They were staring at each other again, the space to say something there but said something was impossible to broach or grasp. Hanzo looked away first and Rose followed suit, clearing her throat.  
  
He stood and rolled his shoulders back, before presenting his hand again to her. “We have little time and you have yet to master the promenade.”  
  
She swallowed the last of her water, placing the glass down and taking his hand in hers.  
  
Yes, there was little time for distraction. They needed to be prepared for later tonight and tomorrow both.  
  
When Hanzo stepped into her again, she forced herself to ignore the buzzing in the back of her head, but just barely.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some matrix references this time! I headcanon Hanzo as a cinephile, especially with martial arts flicks--with all his in-game references it's the only thing that makes sense.
> 
> "Haillons mie’ passe’ tout nu" is a Louisianan creole saying that means: Rags are better than nakedness


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapters, finally! Thanks for the patience!
> 
> Beta'd by http://erothreep.tumblr.com/ as per usual.

* * *

 

 

He tried to pinpoint when he had started to stare at her, but could not remember.

He _did_ remember how she felt, the contour of her hips in his hands, her body too close to his.

He could still feel her hands on him from their brief time dancing. Her eyes were bright and focused as she mirrored each one of his steps, quickly mastering them. He had thought it was admirable that she had done so so quickly. She was a fine dancer, and had a natural rhythm for it that he had lacked as a child. But he had mastered it, like so many other things that were required of him.

Because he had had to. Because there were no other options other than to be the best.

—

“This is how it must be done,” he was told when he was seven and watching a man grovel in front of his father’s feet.

He had failed. Too many times he had given poor results. Hanzo was told that he needed to be dealt with, to teach the others not to do the same.

This is what a leader must do. This is what he must do one day.

“I’ll clean up the accounts! I’ll make sure no one snoops again I swear I—”

His father raised his hand, a signal.

A gunshot rang out in the room, and the man fell to the floor.

Hanzo watched unblinking as the blood spilled from the man’s head and seeped into the flooring.

 

“Men will say anything when they are at death’s door, Hanzo. Remember that.”

Over and over again, he was told this was the way things were. Tradition made up the carbon in his bones, the steel of his blade, and later, the chill of his commands. Everything must have order, because it was the way things always had been and always would be. Now, until Hanzo passed his gifts on to the next generation.

Confronting Genji had been normal, natural. Something that had to be done.

Why had Genji not understood?

Why had Hanzo not been able to?

—

 

Preparation for the surveillance mission he was to go on was brief. Rose would stay in a building nearby to monitor his progress and intervene if need be. Hanzo would be on the ground. Genji, or whomever was with him at Overwatch, had a means to disrupt the security system, giving him an hour window to get in and out before he was detected.

He was practiced, skilled, but not foolish enough to be careless. He was fond of carefully crafted plans and had reveled in constructing them, but he knew anything could go wrong at a moment’s notice; Murphy ’s Law was not one to be ignored.

Rose knew this as well. Perhaps that was why she was letting emotion peek through her normally benign smile.

The room they were using as a safe house was nearly empty. The only defining furniture was a small chair and a table, a laptop resting precariously atop it.

Rose wrung her hands together before placing them behind her back. “Entry 3, right?”

They had gone over the plan at least a dozen times. There was little chance that she had actually forgotten.

He tilted his head to the side. “Yes, and then through the loop as we discussed.”

“Of course,” she looked back to the door, before looking back at him.

The urge to comfort her came to the forefront of his mind, though he was unsure as to why. She knew the risks of accepting this mission, as had he, but still, the thought persisted.

He blinked when he remembered the situation they woke to that morning. He had been too tired to care and she shifted around too often. It had certainly made sense at the time to place his hands on her to still her, but now, he feared he was drawing too close.

He turned his back to her to walk toward the door.

 

“Be careful,” she said, stopping him.

An unnecessary request. He clenched and unclenched his glove. The arm with his tattoo had fully healed a day or so ago, the pain form the burns had finally faded; he was in right enough shape as he would ever be.

He had never had a hard time speaking, but Rose had a way of making words difficult. His rebuttals and remarks were like water snakes, slipping from his tongue as soon as he grasped at them.

He forced the words out. “I will do what is expected of me.”

They had scoped the security briefly before setting up. Watching how often the guard moved in and out of the building before they solidified their plan. Hanzo was briefly reminded of his constant visits to Shimada castle. He had known the guards there, some for years, others from practice due to his consistent infiltration. They were armed with mostly traditional weaponry like him— the guards in this hideout were not.

Hanzo was not foolish enough to think a bow could triumph over a gun, and he did not wish to disillusion Rose, either.

Still, this did not stop him from turning to her and nodding.

She nodded back and he left.

 

—

The inking had taken days.

 

When he had reached the end of his growth spurt, his baby fat melting away and hardening into muscle, his father had told him it was time.

The shop was unmarked, the door and hinges rusty. His father did not follow him as he stepped inside.

The tattooist had thick, grey skin that stretched over her face like a translucent shawl. What he saw of it, at least. The rest of her body was dotted and marked with swirls of ink and vibrant color. Her sleeveless shirt and shorts revealed the trademark Shimada dragon ensnared along the length of her.

She did not seem to look at Hanzo when she regarded him, but through him. Her eyes milky-white from blindness.

“It is impolite to stare,” she had snapped. “Remove your clothing and sit back on the table.”

Her presence unnerved him, but he did as he was told. The room was dark and cool, the table chilling against his skin.

She sat beside him, her chair high enough so she could lean over his form. Hanzo could hear the grating of a tool and the pouring of ink, but did not dare to turn and look. He could smell incense, but could not remember when she had begun burning it. The sun had already set and whatever natural light in the room was quashed, darkness prevailing.

“It will be on the left arm,” was all she said before Hanzo felt the sharp, grating pressure of the tool against his skin.

He did not cry out. He forced himself to quiet, clench his teeth, and still as she began.

 

—

Breaking in was as simple as both of them had hoped.

The plans they were given were outdated, but the entryway had remained a constant. The rooftop had been easy enough to scale, the building old enough that the smooth sheets of tile that were ubiquitous in most modern construction were not present.

The rooftop door was not guarded, but that did not mean it was not being watched.

“Genji is waiting for your mark,” Rose said, his earpiece buzzing.

Hanzo crouched behind the foliage in the roof garden, taking in the space before him, before nodding to himself.

“Commence.”

 

There was a minute of silence before Rose responded. “You have an hour.”

He would not squander it.

He leapt from his space behind the bushes, bow over his shoulder, and ran to the rooftop door.

The lock was old, but Hanzo was careful not to make much noise as he pried it open. There was a stillness in the stairway. No alarms rang, no one below disturbed by his presence.

He closed the door behind him as neatly as he could before descending into the dark.

 

—

There was a threshold he reached when the suji-bori was near completion.

The pain grew, ebbed, reaching its zenith, and then, Hanzo ceased to feel anything. The bite of the needle dipping in and out of his skin had faded with the light in the room, the coolness of the tattooist’s hands making his body numb.

There was a presence beyond this non-feeling, an unintelligible ringing in his ears. He could not understand what it said. It spoke far too fast, its voice impossibly low and terrifyingly high at the same time.

When the old woman had finished with her work for that day, Hanzo had asked her what it meant.

“They are speaking to you,” was all she said. Rubbing her own tattoo, the dragon on her arm bared its teeth at him. Its fangs, no doubt, as sharp as the prick of her needle.

She did not have to elaborate on who “they” were. The dragons were speaking to him in their own way. How they would sound after the tattoo was completed was something Hanzo was apprehensive of. The voices of dozens, if not hundreds, of ancestors weighed on him heavily. More expectations he would have to bear in tandem with the ink that seeped into his skin.

When he left the coolness of the room that third night, his blood burned.

 

—

“Another patrol to your right, twenty meters.”

Hanzo adjusted his path along the corridors accordingly. His infiltration was going smoothly so far— nearly mundane with how little resistance he was facing. When he felt his mind drift, felt his subconscious dredging up a past that he would rather forget, his body went on autopilot. He could always rely upon it when his mind failed to catch up to him.

The descent took the longest amount of time. Hanzo passed hall after hall, each as similar as the last. Chrome plating and crisp white floors at odds with how old and dated the exterior of the building was; they were reminiscent of a hospital ward of some kind, but without nurses.

Rose continued to direct him, her voice grounding. Despite his mind drifting in and out of focus, his reflexes and her warnings made him somewhat functional again.

 

The final descent into the basement was more trying.

Hanzo was pinned between two patrols circling the path to the lower floors.

“Thirty minutes, Hanzo.”

Hanzo fingered the string of his bow. Physical violence was a last resort, something that would give him and Rose away much too quickly for the time this mission required.  

He eased up, biting back the senses telling him to attack, and instead focused on what lay before him. A twenty-two second window was between each of the patrols and he locked in on it.

He swallowed, he could see the numbers begin to drift down and away, and had to grasp at them as he tried to take hold of the situation.

“Hanzo, are you okay?”

Rose’s voice echoed in his ear and he remembered the time they spent at his fitting. He remembered the measurements she had sent him via text and how neatly they had lined up then.

He focused in on her voice, her presence, her smile, and willed the numbers to do the same now.

The second after the first shift passed the other, Hanzo rolled from his hiding spot and counted. Each step, measured. One-hundred fifty-seven centimeters per stride, stretched along a span of thirty meters, each enclave he found giving him two to four more seconds of time until he had passed both the patrols. The numbers had lined up and he followed them.

 

—

The tebori portion of the tattoo took the longest amount of time. A week in, and Hanzo began counting the minutes, then the seconds, and when those too became interminably long, nothing.

The whispers became mumbles. Then, on the final day, distant, tittering gossip.

The tattooist rubbed the last of the excess ink from Hanzo’s arm.

“Drink warm water and chamomile tonight, you will need it,” was all the woman said before she began packing away her things.

Hanzo rose from the table. The pain that he had been pushing down for days had begun to bubble up to the forefront of his consciousness.

By the time he had stumbled to the door, the darkness inebriating his footsteps, the tattooist had disappeared.

 

She had been right. Even with the concoction that she had suggested, sleep eluded him. In and out, voices from earlier that day burned in his ears.

It had been worse than the pain, worse because there was no means of dealing with it. He had held his ears tightly, but the speech of his ancestors, the dragons, bled past his eardrums. Squirming past his fingers like worms.

There were innumerable phrases and words spilling from equally innumerable and invisible lips. Innumerable because Hanzo had tried counting them, tried and failed.

There was one repeating phrase that echoed throughout, one that he had been able to keep track of. One that he could not ignore, even if he tried.

_“This is how it must be.”_

 

—

Empty rooms— two dozen of them and counting. Dozens that he had opened and closed with nothing to show for it. All were disappointing, all but one.

Security used a series of card keys to access it, in and out they filed through. It was most certainly not empty, but Hanzo could not open and close the door to be sure. Its importance was no doubt immense, but he was running out of time, time he did not have to track down keys to a door with infinite possibilities behind it.

“Ten minutes,” Rose said.

Barely enough time to get back to the rooftop. They would have to cut their losses for tonight. They would at least have a goal for the ball.

 

Going up was harder than coming down. 

The shifts of guards had changed formation. The cycles he had memorized were now useless.

 

“One minute,” Rose said, her voice strained.

There was no time to be careful.

He took several small devices from his pocket— electronic disrupters. Equipment that he had implemented in his sonic arrows, but for shorter distances. The disrupters would indicate that someone had been here, but it was better than being captured, or worse.

Hanzo threw them into the florescent lighting of several distant corridors and hid.

The sound echoed, and the surrounding patrols ran to investigate the noises. And then, the alarm went off.

 

He admitted to himself that he was out of practice, just this once. Genji was the more agile of the two of them. He had usually distracted, flitting from one point to the next while Hanzo would land the finishing blow. They had been a formidable team, but Genji was not with him. Rose, however, was.

He brought his finger to his ear. “I need an extraction, now. Teleport me out.”

His prosthetics clicked against the tile, loud enough that he was sure the guards could hear if they were not still swarming. The sound of the alarm alone was deafening.

“Extraction? Hanzo, I can’t teleport you unless I’m there with you.”

“Find a way.”

“You have to—”

He heard the shouting of the guards in a nearby corridor and threw another disrupter their way. Finally, the stairway to the rooftop was in sight and Hanzo ascended as quickly as he could.

The rooftop was loud. The alarms from the inside echoing throughout the small compound of the building.

Rose was louder. “Someone is following you, get out of there!”

Hanzo ducked, nestled in the foliage and flowers of the roof garden. He peered over the rooftop to see guards swarming below. Even if he wanted to climb down, he would doubtlessly be seen.

“There are guards below. There is no way for me to leave undetected.”

Silence over the receiver, as the time ticked by.

“Stay low in the garden and stay still— I’m not sure how well this will work.”

Hanzo clenched his jaw, preparing for the feeling of being sucked out of his skin. “I prefer to not be sawed in half.”

He could hear her swallow over the line. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Before he felt the pulling sensation he associated with Rose’s magic, he sensed another presence. There were no footsteps, no smells, no indication that anyone had been with him on the rooftop moments ago.

Suddenly, from thin air, a figure cloaked in black appeared. His face masked by an owl’s skull.

The figure put his hand up to what would be his ear, before replying in a deep uneven baritone.

 

“Surveying the area.”

Hanzo sat down deeper in the foliage. The mulch wet on his knees, the leaves whispering against his skin. He swallowed, but did not dare do much else.

He silently urged Rose on, it was all he could do now. Blindly put his faith in her.

The figure’s eyes raked over the garden quickly before turning to search the other side of the rooftop.

Hanzo allowed a small sigh to escape him.

And then, several gunshots rang out.

He felt the bullets whiz by the bush beside him. The urge to flee burned in Hanzo’s stomach, but he forced himself to remain still. He still had not been seen.

This became harder when he heard the man’s footsteps grow closer to his position. Sweat trailed along his jaw, his teeth clenching hard. He felt the wind blow in the direction of the dark figure.  He could see the recognition in his form as he smelled Hanzo’s presence in the wind.

A long altercation would attract other guards, he had no choice but to make this engagement swift. Hanzo gripped his bow, felt the words to summon the dragons streak across his mind’s eye as he spoke them silently. But nothing came.

His tattoo remained silent, the colors still dull at his side.

He tried again, tried mouthing the words physically on his tongue. Sliced his forefinger against the sharpness of his bowstring, but only felt himself grow colder.

The footsteps grew closer. The man clad in black, nearly upon him.

He felt dread settle into his stomach as he continued to repeat the summon, each time, the power behind each word becoming weaker and weaker.

His stomach lurched forward, backward. White blinding his vision.

And then, he felt and saw nothing.

—

 

He had looked at the tattoo after three days of deep slumber.

He had not gotten a chance to examine it at first, so consumed he was by pain. The streaks of blue and yellow were even, complimentary. The scales and clouds were a warm, soothing rush of blue, the work as a whole was magnificent.

 The voices no longer plagued his thoughts. Instead, the memories of his ancestors presented themselves every time he summoned the dragons. He saw memories of kills, memories of births, the beginning of battles, and the lull of peacetime.

He had once thought the dragons were meant to kill, to vanquish. The words he uttered when they materialized were not to be taken literally, he found. In those memories, those stories, the urge to protect and to preserve surmounted the need for senseless violence.

If there was nothing to protect, then there was no need for their strength.

Back then, Hanzo had thought they would always have a purpose. His clan would always need protecting, and he in turn would always be there to protect it.

Because that was how things were meant to be.

—

 

Rose’s hands were shaking wildly when he breathed again. Reality was harder to acclimate to the second time around.

She was nodding to him, or to herself, he wasn’t sure. “Breathe in,” she said, though her voice lacked the ease and surety he was used to hearing in it.

He tried to follow her instructions, but it was as though a boulder had taken residence over his lungs. All the while, the feeling of drifting and the inability to tether himself down became harder and harder to push away.

“Focus on me,” she said, her voice hard-edged and desperate.

He took another breath and tried.

Her face was slick with sweat, her makeup wet and tearing. Her hair was loose, errant curls making their way down her shoulders. Her eyes were a light, unyielding ocher—the brightest he had seen them.

 

She nodded stiffly. “Good, now the room.”

He took another breath. They were in the hotel again, though the room was in tatters. Various items—her plants, their clothing and amenities—were strewn about the floor.

The door was bolted, but Hanzo knew that if they were followed, that would not do much.

He coughed as he tried his fourth breath. “How—?”

His voice sounded dry and uneven.

Rose’s shoulders unfurled from their tense position. “I had to teleport us twice. They were already infiltrating the building I was in.”

Hanzo’s head shifted a bit. It took him a moment more to realize it was on her lap.

Finally a bit calmer, Rose shifted him onto a nearby pillow. Hanzo felt something akin to disappointment when she did so.

He swallowed, trying to regain some of his voice back. “The equipment?”

She nodded. “Hence the mess. I had to go back for it.”

His eyes furrowed as he took in the mess of the room again.

She sighed next to him, leaning against the coffee table. “Inanimate objects are harder.”

He nodded, though he was not sure why. It did not make sense to him, though lately, many things did not, and he tried not to dwell on it.

“I spoke to Genji,” she said.

He turned to her again.

“He said we should be okay, we weren’t followed.” Her eyes shifted to the door and then back to him.

He took another breath, and then another. “A success, then.”

She shook her head. “I’d never done that before,” she looked at him, a fear in her eyes as she took him in. “The plants saved you.”

He raised a brow. “The plants?”

She swallowed, nodding. “I could channel through them. They were irises,” she nearly smiled, but stopped herself. “We got lucky.”

“Rose—”

“You need water, and sleep.” She got up from her spot against the small coffee table and shuffled into the kitchenette.

 

Hanzo could do nothing but watch her. Moving was a difficult task, despite breathing becoming easier. He forced himself to sit up and lean against the armchair anyway.

His arms felt sore, as if he had trained hours and hours in the elements like he had once when he was younger. His muscles shook violently as he righted himself, and he would have felt vulnerable if he had not seen Rose in a similar state.

She downed several cups of water before pouring what Hanzo guessed was his own. She nearly handed it to him, but rethought her position. Instead, she brought the cup to his lips, brought her hand to the back of his head and gave him small, steady sips.

Her hand was warm against his neck, as was the water. It wasn’t until he saw the tell-tale chill around the glass did he consider that perhaps he was too cold.

When he was finished, she helped him stand. She was certainly stronger than she looked, but Hanzo remembered her fascination with pro wrestling and reassessed.

She was still shaking when she helped him lie on the bed. She did not bother hiding her distress now. She must be exhausted.

She blinked at him, noticing his gaze on her. “What?”

“Are you well?”

She took a breath and refused to meet his eyes. It was not his intention for the question to make her retreat further into herself.

“It doesn’t matter.”

He pushed. “Tomorrow will be trying.”

She nodded, but still would not meet his eyes. “Right, the mission.”

He shook his head. It was also not his intention to imply that took precedence over her well-being, but when he decided that it did not, he was not sure of. And what this said about his intentions, he was even less sure of.

“I mean to say that you have done enough for today, Rose.”

She finally met his eyes. Hers had calmed, though her hands were still shaking. Not for the first time that day, Hanzo thought of the night prior, how he had stilled her.

He wished to do the same again now.

“You should rest too, I’ll be to bed soon.”

She turned to enter the bathroom, the edge of the door hitting the bed before she closed it.

Hanzo settled onto the covers. He could not have stayed awake for long, even if he tried. He looked once more to his left shoulder, his tattoo still visible in the darkness of the room before falling asleep.

 

—

 

He had failed, and yet, it was a success.

It was a success for blood to be dripping down his blade, the ichor and guts coating it an indication of victory.

He had won.

He had won.

He had killed him.

 

The dreams took their usual shape, the haze of memory misaligned over Genji’s fallen form as his body twisted under Hanzo’s blade. What Hanzo thought he remembered and what he knew to be true, fighting with the illogic of nightmare.

The shape that was once his brother was gutted by the sword, then sliced in half, the remnants crawling over Hanzo’s skin.

He had done it, he had succeeded— won.

He had never meant to win this way.

He had never meant to hurt him. 

Why could Genji not understand? Why did he himself not understand?

 

For the first time in years, he heard the dragons howl in his ears, spitting acidic, terrible words at him. What had he truly protected? What was he now that it was all gone? His brother, his empire, himself. What was there left to protect, to save?

The garbled form of his brother spat blood from his tongue before saying: “This is how it was meant to be.”

His mind had cycled through this hashed memory for years, he had lived it so long that he had accepted it, believed it to be true.

But if this was true, if this was how he should live, why had his dragons not heeded him? Why was he still haunted with his memories? Why, still, could he not heal after over a decade of trying?

For the first time in years, Hanzo allowed his dream self to turn away from the carnage.

And, for the first time in years, Hanzo doubted the specter.

 

—

Waking was always the worst part.

He was shaking again, and was certain the world outside of him was, too. He tried to get a hold on the bedside table and nearly fell to the ground. He could not catch his breath, could barely stand after feeling himself _there_ again, Genji’s crumpled body beneath him.

He forced himself into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. His breathing slowed and the ground stopped shaking. He could no longer hear the wind.

Rose was still asleep when he left the bathroom.

He went into the kitchen, took out the scotch that Rose had bought earlier that week, and tried pouring himself a glass only for it to shatter on the floor.

His hands were still shaking.

Ridiculous.

When he turned to clean it up, there she was, staring at him from the bed. The light from the street streamed in through the barely-open curtain and washed her and the room in an eerie glow.

He tried to ignore the way she looked at him. He stepped over each piece of glass as carefully as he could to get the broom in the closet.

“Hanzo.”

He ignored her and began sweeping.

She sighed and he heard the covers shift aside and the sound of her feet on the hardwood floors. She side-stepped him and began rummaging in the cabinets. He heard pouring, the fridge door opening and slamming shut, and the snap of herbs behind him, but he refused to turn around. She placed whatever it was she was making in the microwave and he threw away the remnants of glass into the trash.

He was about to forgo the scotch altogether and retreat back to the bathroom indefinitely when she placed her hand onto his shoulder.

He swallowed, his progression halted as he tried not to dwell on how smooth her skin felt.  Nor did he want to dwell on the blankness of her hand on him—the telltale buzzing of their touch gone. He took a breath and turned to face her.

 

“Stay,” she said.

The microwave beeped and she gave him another long look before turning to retrieve her cup. She handed it to him, her hand on his bicep this time.

“Here.”

He looked at her, her hand on him, the physical contact forcing him back into reality. The smell of the concoction was warm and inviting.

“What is it?”

“It helps with bad dreams. My mother used to make it for me.”

He clenched and unclenched his jaw before taking the mug and sitting at the counter.

It tasted like a warm honeyed ale, but he could not place the tang of fruit that accompanied it. Already he could feel his appendages warm, the cold from the dream receding. He took another sip.

Rose frowned at him. “You two really _should_ talk. Not through texts, either.”

“About what, exactly?”

“What happened between you.”

_‘And what you did,’_ he heard. He knew she did not say it, but the implication was there.

“How does one apologize for attempted murder?”

“He needs to hear it, just as much as you do. Even if those words are worthless to you, they’re not to him.”

He took another long drink from the mug, but said nothing. He still saw the remnants of his dream, stuck in his mind’s eye like tack. Rose’s words stuck along with it and he tried to shake them both away, but to no avail.

She sighed and was about to rise and go back to bed, but he stopped her, holding her wrist lightly in his palm. He felt the gentle thrum of her pulse, felt her eyes on him as he held her there.

“They are not worthless to me,” he slowly dropped her hand and gripped both hands onto the nearly empty drink.

“Okay,” she said softly.

She sat next to him and poured herself a drink out of her bottle of moonshine.

“He said you were still mourning him, fifteen years later—” she took a sip. “That’s a long time, Hanzo.”

“I know this.”

“You’re...” She placed her cup down. “still in mourning, aren’t you?”

He hated the way she did that, hated the way she unraveled his thoughts and cropped up feelings out to dry like she did her herbs each morning.

“Genji is still alive,” he said. He downed the rest of his drink, the taste staining his tongue.

“I don’t think we’re talking about Genji anymore.”

He wanted the scotch again, or maybe some of the moonshine that she had offered the other day. It was strong, strong enough to make him forget, strong enough that this conversation would not be happening. But she did not seem that affected by it, she held the glass in her hands, patient as she waited for a response.

“Your clan, your title, those dreams— You have to let go of those, too.”

 

_‘This is how things must be.’_

_‘This is how things were meant to be.’_

_‘This is your duty.’_

His grip on the glass tightened and he curled his shoulders inward. “You know nothing.”

“I know that kind of hurt doesn’t just go away because you try not to think about it,” she said.

He did not respond, could not. His grip on the mug loosened.

She hesitated at first, but rubbed his back, the contact warm and welcome in the same way the drink was. He tried not to seem disappointed when she stopped and stood to return to bed. He would have followed suit shortly after if he hadn’t heard a small yelp of pain from her. He turned on the light in the kitchen to see blood dripping off her foot in a thin, steady stream.

He had missed a piece.

 

“Ah, I have tweezers in my bag. Could you?”

She limped to one of the armchairs and he turned on the desk light, rummaging through her supply bag and digging out the tool.

She was examining the damage when he took her foot in his hand and eased it up to the light. She placed her hand on his shoulder to right herself, nearly falling into him.

Hanzo watched the material of her shift skim against her thigh before forcing his eyes back on hers. The few times they had interrupted one another’s sleep had not been pleasant. Neither was this, exactly, but now Hanzo was noticing the dip of her throat as she swallowed, how thick her calves were, the brown of her arms and shoulders, bare and toned. She was watching him in a similar fashion, her head cocked to the side.

They sat there for a fraction of a second simply looking at one another before Rose cleared her throat.

“Ah, I can do it.” She reached for the tweezers, but he pulled them away from her grasp.

“Consider it a thank you for the drink.”

She nodded, but would not look him in the eye. “All right.”

He knelt in front of her, placing her foot on his leveraged knee before he took the tweezers to the glass.

She tensed as he dug the shard out of her skin. The piece was bigger than he thought, the glass smooth as he removed it and placed it on the coffee table.

Her blood dripped down her foot and onto the area rug in earnest, but she simply sat there and watched it. Hanzo moved over to her bag to get alcohol, gauze, and tape.

She placed her wrapped foot down tentatively before looking over his work. “Not bad.”

She rested her head atop her knee as they looked at one another again. He should really stop staring at her, go back to bed, or meditate in the bathroom like he had planned to. But she hadn’t moved either, and not for the first time today, he wondered what she was thinking.

 

“Since we’re already burning the midnight oil, could you help me with my arm, too?”

“Your arm?” He knew what she meant, but could not help himself from asking the question. He blamed it on the residual tiredness and how close she still was.

“I doubt you’re going to go back to sleep soon,” she said.

He eyed her prosthetic under the desk light.

She took a breath and began to say something else before he interrupted her.

“Your arm is malfunctioning?” he asked, his response staggered.

She nodded. “It needs maintenance now and again, and after today... I wanted to fix it before tomorrow.”

He nodded in response, but could not find it in himself to say anything more.

She went to the closet to get her maintenance kit and proceeded to take off the bulk of the prosthetic. The musculature and lining were carefully removed, each section giving way to her hands— deft and practiced. Finally, there was nothing left but the stringy, wiry, skeleton of her arm. It seemed almost delicate, but Hanzo knew from experience it was probably more durable than it looked.

He heard her swallow, the only sound in the room besides their breathing. “Well, don’t just sit there,” her words were light but her voice was strained.

He shifted against the carpet before kneeling beside her chair.

She rolled back her shoulder. “You get to do the fun part. Lucky me.”

He raised a brow.

“Not funny— I know. Twist the dial until the part disconnects, then replace it with this one when it’s out.”

He looked at the two parts, thumbing the new piece and eyeing the old, before he nodded. “It will be painful.”

Her eyes look tired as she licked her lips. “Yes, and I always wait too long, so do it quickly, please.”

He nodded and gripped onto her shoulder to steady himself. Her body was still warm, nearly feverish, but pleasantly so.

He thumbed the area where her neck met her shoulder blade, then the nape of her neck. Her skin was soft here too, unmarred. He swallowed as the light from the desk shone across the length of her neck. He felt his own hackles rise when she sighed, closing her eyes.

He twisted the dial, wrenching the part from its designated space and replacing it just as quickly.

She opened her eyes and clenched them back shut, sucking in air through her teeth as he steadied the replacement in the socket.

She covered her eyes with her other hand. “Goddammit.”

It was the first time she had cursed in front of him, and it sounded odd coming from her. He did not vocalize this, however, simply rubbed her shoulder as she rode out the pain.

“Are you—”

“You could have at least warned me— A count to three or something…”

“It is better not to expect it.”

“You’d make a terrible nurse.”

She shifted against the arm chair and he rose from his spot on the floor to sit in the chair opposite to her. Their knees brushed against one another and Hanzo looked away toward the window.

“When Genji got hurt when we were younger, I would do the same thing.”

She shook her head, a smile rising and then falling from her face just as quickly. “Excuses.”

“You did say to make it quick.”

She turned to look at him, still shaking off the pain. “I know I did. Thank you.”

“It is nothing.”

He eyed her as she replaced the various sinew back onto her arm, the parts sliding into place with a soft click. He thought on the nightmare again, Genji’s body sliding bloody against the floor, and his body now. Stiff, mechanical— all Hanzo’s doing.

He shifted in his seat. “Genji’s body—is the pain…similar?”

Silence settled between them and Rose would not look at him. She continued putting together her arm. When it was finished, she clenched an unclenched her fist, testing it.

“It is,” she finally said instead of elaborating.

He had known it was not a simple way of living. According to Rose, even drinking was not possible for him. He briefly wondered what Genji ate, how he slept, if he was… happy. His head began to throb, and he wanted to rest, but he knew the dreams would not sleep with him.

Rose pushed her knee against his and warmth blossomed up the left side of his body. “What about yours, don’t you need maintenance now and again?”

His eyes flitted up to hers and then down again. “There is no need, unless there is permanent damage to either limb.”

She wiped down her prosthetic with a foul-smelling oil as she spoke. “Expensive, then?”

“Is inquiring about the cost of my body parts also an ‘ice breaker’?” he gestured with his fingers, mimicking Rose’s intonation, though it sounded harsher than he intended.

She did not seem to mind. “Hm, maybe. Depends on how much they cost.”

“As much as my clan could afford…”

He trailed off. They certainly ached at times. When it rained, when he pushed himself too hard with training, but otherwise, he did not need to do much to maintain them.

She looked up, but it was his turn to look away. She nudged him again, her knee pushing against his prosthetic one until she let it rest there.

“He does forgive you, you know that, right?”

He had said as much, had implored Hanzo to pick a side after sparing his life. To work with him and his Overwatch, to fight side by side again. He glared at the carpet.

“Does it matter?”

She nudged him a third time before retreating. “I think it does.”

He shook his head, but still refused to look at her. “Have you found the answer to your question?”

Her voice was soft when she answered. “No, not yet.”

“Another thing we have in common.” He cradled his fingers together, elbows against his knees.

“What question are you trying to answer?” she asked, polishing the outside of her arm before setting the cleaner aside.

He looked away toward the window. Beyond the curtain, skyscrapers clawed at the horizon, lights glittering like the so many stars that should have been in the night sky instead. Hanzo was not one for stargazing, but there had always been something out of place about the lack of them in the night sky.

He looked to Rose. She, equally fascinated with the skyline. He took in her profile again. Noted how tired she looked, how the light from the window bounced against the brown of her eyes.

When she turned again to look at him, he could not find it in himself to stop staring.

“I wonder if I am worthy of that forgiveness,” he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper.

He had once thought that he had started to heal, believed that the scar tissue, the prosthetics, and the nightmares could be erased if he prostrated himself at the family shrine each year and stayed out of Hanamura any other time. He had been foolish for thinking that a life of killing could be washed away with another life of similar means.

He had thought that eventually things would make sense, that his pleas to his ancestors could mean something. And where had that gotten him? As far from his home as he had ever been, with no family, or real life to speak of.

He did not deserve Genji’s forgiveness, much less the chances he kept giving him.

Perhaps, this _was_ how things were.

“Hanzo,” Rose said.

He did not respond, did not wish to.

She prodded him, with her left foot this time.

He looked at her foot first, and then at her. The sympathy he saw written in her expression made his throat burn. He did not deserve that, either.

“You shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

He scrunched his eyebrows together. “English idioms do not make sense to me.”

She sighed. “Fine. _Oufache_ _’ avec ganchemin, que cote ouwapasse_.’”

He stumbled through a translation in his head.

“If you get angry with the highroad, what way will you go?” She translated gently.

Hanzo allowed himself to be pensive. “It is not that simple.”

He watched as her foot moved away from his.

“The hardest things are often the simplest.”

She grabbed his arm and gaze just as intensely. The silence of their touch did not go unnoticed between the two of them.

“It starts like an infection,” she began, her fingers tracing the ink of his tattoo, brushing at his veins. “It works its way down from your mind, to your heart, your body, until it’s all you are.”

She let go of him and he looked down to his tattoo again. Remembered frantically trying to call upon it, but only hearing the blank silence he heard now.

His arm was still warm from her touch. “Is that advice from the magician’s past experience?”

She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “Three is a magic number, after all.”

Hanzo had been taught his whole life how to hold on tight, to never let go of anything he valued or invested time in. The Shimadas were known for dragons, but worked like vipers, encircling their prey and strangling them until they could no longer produce, live.

He had never been taught to let go, however. Never was he told what to do if the traditions ingrained in his mind and skin had failed him.

This was not how things should be.

Hanzo knew this now, and he had nothing but the cold, hard past to hold on to. For years, he had visited Genji’s shrine, kept his feather tucked into his back pocket. Gripped onto whatever scraps he could from a life that he no longer had.

Rose was right, it had consumed him.

She broke him out of his thoughts. “I don’t know exactly what happened between you two, but—”

“Then you should,” he said suddenly.

His body felt too warm, the tension in him coiling and uncoiling until he exhaled. Maybe it was the drink she gave him, the advice, or just the warmth of her presence, but he wanted her to know.

 

“It started—” he clenched and unclenched his jaw. “It started on a warm day…”

Slowly, Hanzo felt himself unfurl his fingers, his grasp on the invisible stone that had been weighing him down loosening.

He let it go, dropped it, and let it fade into nothing.

It was time he decided how things should and should not be.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of chapter 7, really. It was getting wayyy too long.

* * *

 

 

“It started on a warm day—”

—

 

Warning of an incoming typhoon echoed throughout Hanamura, but he had barely been paying attention. His whole body was drawn tight, his mind whirring as he came abreast from his latest meeting with the clan’s elders.

_“He is unruly, you must bring him to heel.”_

_“If he does not comply, he risks staining our name.”_

_“Speak to him, teach him what happens to those who disobey.”_

_—_

 

Hanzo swallowed, his mouth dry even as he took a drink of the scotch Rose had poured the both of them. “I had thought this reasonable of them. Kind, even. Genji had not been listening to their warnings and they were giving him yet another chance.”

He drew his eyebrows together. “I cannot blame them for what happened next.”

Rose sat up a bit from her spot the couch, anger tightening her posture. “You were groomed, brainwashed. They deserve part of that blame, too.”

He was silent for a moment as he circled the rim of his glass with his fingertip before shaking his head. “I obeyed them, saw their word as law after my father passed. Genji broke away. I did not. The blame rests with me. I have…come to terms with this.”

Rose sat back and watched him. He took a breath and continued.

“My father and I treated Genji softly, and rarely penalized him for his careless actions—”

—

 

  For years, he had spent his time in arcades and amongst promiscuous men and women alike. After their father had died, he had cut his hair shorter, dyed it, smiled as if none of it bothered him. Even then, Hanzo could tell he feared what his future would look like in the clan. His presence was no longer an unneeded one. The picture had started cracking then and his mother would not look at either of them. Perhaps she saw the phantom of her dead husband in their faces, or maybe she was sorry for what would become of them. Hanzo had never been sure.

He had believed Genji would be able to see how important this was to him. How important this should have been to him now that their family had lost its head.

Genji had been in his usual haunt, the arcade. Bright hair was easy to spot among the heads of brown and black. The bright fluorescent lights of the game he was playing washing it in an even more unnatural color.

Hanzo had told him that they needed to talk, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Genji had led the way “to somewhere quiet,” he had said. They walked through the town, heads turning as they passed. The news of their father’s death finally working through the lips of the denizens of Hanamura.

Hanzo had paid them no mind.

Genji had.

The only sign that he recognized his father’s death was in the stiff set of his shoulders as he brushed past the villagers.

He led them to the hill they had played on as children. It was empty as the wind began to pick up, leaves and debris whisked away to the ocean. It sang in his ears as Hanzo spoke, his clothing and hair rippling around him as he implored Genji to tow the line, to take on the duties that were his birthright.

Genji had heard every word— Hanzo knew he had— but still he smiled, still he laughed as if it were some elaborate joke Hanzo had played on him.

This was a conversation they had touched on before. Hanzo had thought after his father’s death it would be different, thought that Genji would help him and not leave him to carry the burden by himself. The eyes of the clan leaders had been so heavy, and Hanzo felt as though he was already carrying the world. He could not do it alone.

He did not remember who started yelling first, or why. Perhaps it had been because their spirits were clashing too violently, perhaps the wind had drowned out softer, more benign words as the typhoon grew in strength around them. Whatever the cause, angry words soon became angrier blades.

They had often practiced to take out their frustrations from the world on each other, the pretense behind each session light and open. This was different.

Genji aimed too closely to Hanzo’s vitals, did not pull his punches. Hanzo in turn had blocked and parried each of his blows, returning them with practiced ease.

They knew each other too well, had spent too much time with one another for any movements the other made to be anything but perfunctory. Their swings soon became intermittent as they circled one another, looking for an opening.

The wind’s howling had only grown worse, and debris began whipping around them, irreverent to their quarrel. Hanzo was upwind, the advantage his when a branch blocked Genji’s line of sight for but a millisecond, an opportunity that he did not hesitate to take advantage of.

The first strike led to a second, a third, and Hanzo had stopped counting after that because there had been blood on his hands and face, sticking to his neck and clothing. The number of strikes had not mattered anymore because it had been Genji’s blood.

Genji fell to his knees and Hanzo had thought that had been the end of it when he felt his knees give out under him as Genji gave a final, decisive swing at Hanzo’s legs. The last desperate measure of a man close to death, his cuts sloppy, but strong enough that they pushed Genji back— off the edge of the cliff.

Hanzo had watched. His knees had given out and all he could do was stare as Genji fell further and further away until his body was enveloped by the ocean.

He had not watched to see if he had tried to resurface, could not see anything but the accursed sword in his hands, the blood from his knees staining the grass, and the remnants of his clothing.

 

 _“You did what had to be done,”_ had been words that were spoken to him, but Hanzo could not hear them. The wind had never stopped whirring in his ears.

__

 

Rose placed her drink on the table, long having finished it, and slowly pried Hanzo’s from his hands.

“You’ve been reliving this for a while now, haven’t you?”

He looked up at her, the same concern in her eyes from before.

It felt strange finally retelling it, admitting that it had happened. Hanzo had wanted to heal from it, the scar that had consumed him so thoroughly that anything and everything else around him seemed inconsequential. Now, he felt he had finally begun.

He felt himself slowly peel back the skin. The rawness of the wound still there, throbbing. It would always still be there, he knew, but it was high time he dealt with it properly.

He nodded. “You were right.”

She scrunched her eyebrows together. “About?”

Hanzo rose from his chair. “I need to speak to him.”

All of this time— it had already been too long.

 

He took his phone from its place on the bedside and moved to the door. Rose stood in the kitchenette, watching him.

“I will be back soon.”

She nodded and gave him a small smile. The warmth he saw in it was reassuring.

—

 

It was foggy on the rooftop. It had rained in the past few hours since their infiltration and small pools of water gathered at the center of the roof.

Hanzo rubbed his thumb across the top of the screen, a nervous habit he was beginning to develop that irritated him the more he did it— which only made him rub the screen more devotedly.

He found the only other contact besides Rose’s in his phone and opened up their most recent conversation.

He thought on what to say but everything seemed too wrong, too insincere. ‘Sorry’ did not make amends, but neither did saying nothing at all.

When he was six, and Genji three, he had ripped the bandage off his brother’s leg. Genji had been whining about doing it himself and refused to take it off after a week of it sitting on his knee, the fabric of the material already dirty and soiled. Hanzo, impatient as he was, had done it himself.

Genji had cried when he did so, though the pain could not have been immense. Hanzo had already seen men cut off their own fingers for his father and they had not cried as much as Genji had.

“When someone you love hurts you, it burns like no wound an enemy can inflict,” his father had told him.

Hanzo had thought he understood, had made a vow to himself to never hurt Genji again. When they trained, he would always let him win. When it came to killing the traitors in their organization, he would make sure Genji was kept from those tasks as often as possible. Genji would never be clean, their line of work would not allow it, but at least he would not be like him. Hanzo had made sure of that.

He had thought he could convince him, he had not thought he would need to harm him to do so.

The phone was warm in his hand as he stared at the screen. He began typing several messages. Some were about his journey to redemption, some short choppy sentences, others he attempted to incorporate quotes, but they all sounded wrong and Hanzo knew they all were.

He deleted every single one, and sighed as he stared at the number in the contact information.

The phone rang three times. Hanzo feared Genji would not answer, but he did.

There was silence as he picked up the phone, the only sign that he was even on the other line was his breathing, soft—mechanical— over the receiver.

“Hanzo?”

Hanzo felt himself peel off the bandage again, this time gently, easily.

[“I do regret it,”] he forced out, his throat already dry, his voice unstable, [“all of it.”]

Genji was quiet on the other line and Hanzo would not have minded if he simply hung up on him after such a banal declaration.

He did not, however, simply said nothing as they sat together in the silence Hanzo had created.

[“I know.”] He finally said.

Hanzo did not know how to respond to that.

[“The pressure on you, on both of us, was… I have come to understand why you did what you did.”]

Hanzo stepped into the puddle, the ripples blurring his mirror image as he began pacing. [“That does not make it right.”]

[“No, it does not.”]

Genji spoke again. [“They asked things of me, as well, Hanzo. I killed for our family just as you did.”]

[“But never your own brother.”]

[“I was not asked to.]

The thought caused Hanzo to stop pacing, his throat burning. He briefly wondered what it would have been like if he had been. What would their relationship have been like if Hanzo had been on the receiving end of the order, if he had been the one to fall? Would he have been as forgiving as Genji was now?

Hanzo swallowed. [“You should be angrier with me.”]

[“I was, just like you are now.”] A pause. [“My master guided me, he helped me let go of that anger.”]

[“Master?”]

[“A Shambali monk.”]

Silence. More of Genji’s breathing feeding through the line.

[“That is not to say you need a monk to guide you. You were never the type to take unsolicited advice.”] His voice took on a lighter tone.

Hanzo ignored it. [“You should still be angry with me.”]

[“That is not what either or us needs right now.”]

Hanzo shook his head. [“Then what do we need? Do we merely accept what happened?”]

[“I am alive, Hanzo. That moment gave us both a second chance at life. It is time you started living yours.”]

Hanzo’s throat was dry, and the fog that was once a cool balm on his skin was now suffocating and interminable. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then tried again.

His mind went to the infiltration once more. How his words had been stuck in his mind’s eye— they were ineffectual, unimportant.

But Genji was still on the line, he was still listening.

He did not need the protection that Hanzo tried to provide him when they were younger. He did not need Hanzo’s words, either. He had already said enough. He knew that Genji would accept this, but still, an underlying itch made him restlessly shift side to side.

Genji broke the silence yet again.

[“Do you remember that one summer when we were younger? It was too hot even for the cicadas, some were even falling off the trees.”]

Hanzo shook his head, his stomach felt watery. [“You attempted to climb the trees near the compound, to see where they had gone.”]

The fog had thickened around him. Hanzo stood still and watched the flickering lights of the city below him burn in and out like fireflies in the night.

[“When I fell, I broke both my legs at once and you had to carry me home. Your arms were so tired that I had to swat away the mosquitoes for you.”]

[“We—”] Hanzo swallowed.[“always did work well together.”]

[“Even if we did not say it, right?”]

There were many things still that Hanzo had not said, could not say. Genji understood this, too, even from far away he could feel his ease, his acceptance. Hanzo let it wash over him as he stood overlooking the city.

[“I think, near death-murder-yakuza experiences included, we did okay. Wouldn’t you agree, brother?”] Genji said.

How could he still call him that after everything? But perhaps that was the point, that even after what they had both endured, they were still brothers, kin. A bond that they could neither ignore, nor cast aside— a bond that Genji was allowing Hanzo to take up again, should he so choose.

Hanzo clenched onto the phone, the fog no longer the reason he could not see, his vision blurring. [“Yes,”] he swallowed before he allowed himself to say the word.

[“Yes, brother… It is hard to say who father would be more disappointed by.”]

Hanzo could not see him, but he could practically hear Genji smile on the other line. [“A good marker for progress.”] He responded.

The unease that had been building up in his stomach dissipated, quashed by a feeling Hanzo had not felt in a long time. It built and built until Hanzo could not help himself. He laughed.

It began softly, then grew, louder and louder until it dwarfed the sounds of the cars rushing below him.

It reverberated in the night air, but not loudly enough that he could not hear Genji on the other line, laughing along with him.

Finally the fog dissipated. Some of the street lights and buildings had even turned off their lights. In the distance, beyond the city lights and last remnants of fog, Hanzo could see the beginnings of stars.

 

—

 

Going out at night had been Genji’s idea. He had just recovered from his fractures and he had been restless after staying in the compound for weeks.

There was a break in the woods, a circular formation where they often played when they were toddlers. But back then, Genji had just wanted to lay in the grass and stare at the sky. Without the light from town, the stars were out, brighter than Hanzo had ever seen them.

“We put a monkey space base on the moon, and yet we cannot touch the stars,” Genji had said. His hair was dark against the bright green grass.

“You must be delirious from your medicine. You cannot touch stars, brother. You would burn.” Hanzo had laid down beside him, the grass tickling his neck.

Genji sucked his teeth. “Killjoy Hanzo.”

“Stupid Genji.”

Hanzo was more interested in the forest around them, watching signs of the various animals hiding their presence and stalking about the trees. This part of the wood was quiet, however, solemnly so. Hanzo had reluctantly looked toward the stars as Genji had.

“Stars don’t have to train first thing in the morning,” Genji sighed.

Hanzo had squinted at him. “They do not get to eat endless bowls of ramen, either.”

“Stars eat other stars— that’s even better.”

Hanzo had rolled his eyes and ignored him.

The crickets had been so loud that Hanzo’s ears had started ringing, singing with them. They had laid there for so long that Hanzo’s body was starting to grow cold from the dew on the grass.

“I want to be them, to be closer. Just for a while.”

Genji’s voice was gentle, too quiet for his usual self.

Hanzo had known how heavily the clan’s responsibilities had weighed on his brother. Genji was always more susceptible to the goings-on around him, and Hanzo had watched him begin to curl in on himself. His laughs became weaker, his smiles stiffer.

Hanzo sat up, trimmings of grass falling from his hair. “If they cannot find us, then we cannot train.”

A simple enough logic, but Genji’s smile was quick to appear on his face and it did not falter or stiffen.

They spent all night and morning flitting through the trees. Genji nearly broke his leg again, but neither of them could stop smiling.

 

—

 

Rose was asleep on her side of the bed when he returned.

It had been awhile since Hanzo had come back to someone else’s presence. Being alone had made it difficult to see what life might be any other way. He looked at Rose’s form breathing steadily from the kitchenette before sneaking into the bathroom. It was odd, but not a terrible feeling.

By the time he showered and slipped under the covers, Rose had stirred. She turned over to look at him, blinking rapidly to keep her eyes open.

She gave him a once-over before yawning. “It went well.”

He nodded. He forced his mind to stop questioning how she knew these things, but Hanzo guessed his body language alone was enough. He was loose, his mind untethered and calm.

“You’re smiling,” she said, rubbing at her eyes.

He resisted touching his mouth to check. “I am not.”

She shook her head, her eyes warm in the dark. “I’m glad it went well.”

He nodded back. “As am I.”

“You know what this means, right?”

Her eyes were wide open now, the beginning of a grin making its way onto her face.

“No.”

“A lot more incomprehensible emojis.”

Hanzo grunted and turned away from her.

She nudged at his back with her hands, the warmth of them soothing. “Don’t ignore me.”

“I am sleeping,” he said.

She moved her hands away, and for the third time that day, Hanzo lamented the loss of her touch. “I didn’t realize you talked in your sleep, too.”

“It does appear to be contagious,” he said.

“And you’re articulate, too. Impressive.”

“I learned from the best.”

She laughed. “Oh, shut up.”

He turned to face her and misjudged how close she was to him.

He blinked, noticing the strap of her shift easing down her shoulder. This close to her, he could see the slight bump of her birthmark on her cheek, the deep brown of her eyes, and the length of her throat as she swallowed.

He could feel her knees barely brush against his, and the feeling of almost-touch caused a shiver to race along his lower body.

He drew closer to her.

She touched his bicep tentatively, thumb rubbing circles into his skin. Her eyes dropped to his tattoo and Hanzo felt her mentally retreat. “Is your, uhm, arm feeling better?”

He took a breath and forced himself not to move closer. “It was not wounded.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

He still could not feel the thrum of their connection, but he did not want to dwell on that now. She had not yet removed her hand from him and she was still looking at him much too closely.

“One of your ‘feelings’.” He tried to joke, to push the warmth of her gaze outward and away.

She only stared harder, her face deadpan but with a hint of humor skimming along the surface. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to teleport you to the moon and leave you there.”

He glanced toward the window briefly, as if he could see the moon if he simply looked hard enough. He did not remember what phase it was in, and did not remember seeing it out when he spoke with Genji, either. “The moon base has been inactive for a decade now.”

“A shame, guess you’ll just float there with all the peanut butter.”

He scrunched his eyebrows together. “Why do you assume there is peanut butter there?”

“Obviously there’s peanut butter, Hanzo. Come on, it’s outer space.”

Facetious, clearly. He now could tell when she was joking. That he enjoyed this immensely was something he was having a hard time telling himself.

“I doubt you can go that far, even with magic.”

She smiled as if she were on stage, the birthmark on her cheek rising, nearly touching the length of her lashes. “Don’t know until I try.”

“Hm, I see.”

She rubbed his arm one final time before dropping her hand from him. “It will get better. Maybe you need a few more emoji conversations with your brother to get your mojo back.”

“Whatever mojo is, I want nothing to do with it.”

She smiled before moving away from him, marginally so. He resisted the urge to close the distance again and clenched the back of his pillow instead.

“Goodnight, Hanzo.”

He watched as her body turned away from him, and laid still for a moment, unable to do the same.

He simply lay there, thinking. He did not count the minutes as they ticked by. Time passing with how often Rose tossed and turned on her side of the bed.

 

He thought on Genji’s words, on how he had said that he needed to start living. Hanzo had agreed without really knowing what it meant. Even now, he was on a mission, fighting to make up for past mistakes. But soon, even that would end, and where did that leave him? What came after?

He had spent his whole life running, his whole life chasing after an honor and tradition that he had not chosen, and then another life trying to make up for it. For once, he just wanted things to lie still, to simply be.

The heartbeat by his side broke him out of his thoughts. Rose had shifted in her sleep again, her foot grazed the metal of his calf.

“Rose,” he said.

She did not turn back around. “Hm?”

Her answer seemed reflexive, not quite cognizant. She was tired.

Just as today had been an ordeal for him, she had worked just as hard, if not doubly so, saved both of them from exposure and an uncertain demise. He had long since stopped doubting why Overwatch wanted her back, but still, he had yet to give her her due.

“Thank you.”

He could hear her suck in a breath before she responded, a thread of consciousness breaking through.

“You’re welcome,” she mumbled.

Perhaps there was no need for things to be set in stone now. Hanzo did not need to carve out the intricacies of “what ifs” into the unknown. He would finish this mission, fulfill his promise, and then, then, he thought, maybe he would let the wind guide him. He had plenty of time, and for once, he felt certain of this.

When Hanzo finally fell asleep, there were no nightmares waiting to greet him, just the sigh of wind in his ears and the feeling of warm grass beneath his feet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was super hard for me to write for a couple of reasons. 
> 
> One being, abuse, and how it's telegraphed in familial relations, isn't always clear cut, and there are never winners, only losers. I think Genji's means of dealing with it isn't right or wrong by any means. He's doing what he can to cope after being severely harmed by someone he loved, just as Hanzo stuck to repetitive and self-destructive behavior to deal with his own abuse and abuse he inflicted on someone else.
> 
> It's super messy, but I'm glad I wrote it. Hanzo's newest line is in there too--I just had to use it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took forever! School and life caught up with me, and I had to sort out some major plot issues with both of these chapters. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!
> 
> Beta'd by the amazing http://erothreep.tumblr.com/

 

* * *

 

 

She dreamt of his hands.

It was prepubescent, wanton, and immodest, but dreams had no qualms with what should or shouldn’t occur. The feeling of almosts made it impossible to feel too ashamed, however. The feeling of his fingers almost curling around her waist; her body almost drowning, unable to keep itself abreast of the feeling that rushed between them. She was almost close enough, almost beside herself, almost convinced that it wasn’t a dream.

Almost.

—

She woke, arms and legs leaden, lungs heaving, her body tacked with sweat.

She was the only one in bed.

It was still early morning and the shower was running from the bathroom.

She had spent too much of her childhood getting angry at dreams to do so now, but the frustration lingered, as did the sweat on her skin. The sheets were too hot and she kicked them off her before sitting up, head in her hands.

She took, one, two, three calming breaths.

They were on a mission, so of course they had grown closer. Most people in her old regimen had been her friends, if not acquaintances. Drinking together was normal, platonic. Fantasizing about each other wasn’t. Not for her.

She imputed that they just needed some space.

Rose eyed her phone on the nightstand before picking it up. She thumbed away the emoji notifications from Genji and felt shame, cold and unyielding, trickle down her spine. He hadn’t sent her on this mission to get cozy with his brother. Weeding out Talon was the priority. Feelings, as fleeting as they often were, came much, much lower on the totem pole.

A message from Michel buzzed on her screen, breaking her away from her thoughts. The hotel hosting her staff finally had some openings. She glanced toward the bathroom door once more before booking them in the apartment suite.

_Push it away, tuck it away._

These weren't words that she'd been told to recite and make mantra, no, these were words she herself found residence and understanding in. She couldn’t afford to be vulnerable again.

—

 

It hadn’t been an argument, not really. This was what they had decided to tell themselves.

Ava had called it a conflict of interests. Rose had called it a misunderstanding. Both were in agreement, however, that they didn’t argue. Both conceded that they had got on too well to call it that.

“What do you mean you’re leaving?” Ava had asked one day.

They were in her room, thumbing through magazines and catching each other up on their respective days when the thorn of conversation had inserted itself between them.

Rose shook her head. “I’ve explained this already.”

Ava lowered her magazine. “Well explain it again, because I just don’t get it.”

Rose’s hands had been shaking at that point. Another amputation that day and she had still seen red, no matter how often she washed her hands. She had needed to quiet her spirit, so she had sought out Ava. They started daydreaming about things far away from their present selves and Ava had brought up Overwatch and the illustrious career ahead of her.

Which had led to—

“I just think I want to take a break after the South is _all-clear_.”

Ava had frowned and said. “Soldiers don’t take breaks.”

“We have leave, Ava.”

“That’s different!”

“ _How?_ ”

She sat up from her spot on the bed, blonde hair bright and frazzled. “War isn’t just a game you can opt out of when you get tired of it!”

Rose’s eyebrows scrunched together. “I never said that.”

“That’s what it sounds like,” she said through gritted teeth.

They had looked at each other then. Ava had been shaking with a barely contained rage, her shoulders set back, eyes hard. Rose had looked away, wilted under her gaze until she remembered that morning. The heat, red and hot, the blood— the bone and marrow.

Her throat was raw when she finally spoke.“Maybe I do want to leave.”

She had never used that tone of voice before, she had never had to. But now her feelings were overflowing in a way they didn’t often do and it was too late to stem the tide.

“Maybe I’m tired of piecing everyone back together only for them to fall apart and die in front of me, okay?!”

The silence she had spun had been unbearable.

Rose couldn’t look at her, couldn’t breathe. She had left to go to her room and clear her head.

When Ava had come to her a day later and apologized, they never recognized the fight. They had let it slip away, hadn’t pinned it down as they should have. At first, Rose had thought it the folly of children. Maybe they had been too young to process each other’s hurt, too young understand it.

But the longer they went without seeing each other as developed adults, the less she thought of it as such.

It hadn’t just been an argument, it had been a break. And neither of them had set it so that it could heal. It hung limply at their sides until it had been eaten away by time and distance.

Then the war had ended and it was still there—broken. But Rose had done enough amputations, she had known when to give in and cut something loose.

—

 

Hanzo hadn’t said anything when she told him they were checking out that day. He had simply packed his things away neatly, his shirt sticking to his back from the humidity in the bathroom, his hair smelling like the cheap hotel conditioner.

Rose shifted her eyes away from him, unwilling to face neither the context of her dream, nor the idea of wanting to fulfill it.

She forced herself to ignore him and continued packing, her hands moving much too quickly, stuffing and un-stuffing the contents of her already overpacked suitcase. She must have been making quite the show of it, as she could hear him stop packing his own things to turn and look at her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Rose bit her lip. She really wished he would stop asking her that. It felt too personal a question, despite it only being a perfunctory one. No, she wasn’t _all right_ , but she also didn’t want to answer. She fiddled with her suitcase, trying to buy herself time to respond.

She could feel him look at her.

“Rose?”

“Yes,” she answered, her voice too high.

She wasn’t facing him, but she could practically feel his brow raise from across the room.

“You are quiet,” he said.

“I’m always quiet.”

He scoffed.

Her hands stopped fidgeting. “Don’t.”

“I did not say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

He chuckled. “I thought you could not read minds.”

She rolled her eyes, shifting away from him to sit on top of her suitcase, forcing the contents inside. She blamed Genji for the extra equipment they had to lug around.

She hadn’t been paying attention to where he was in the room, but he was suddenly next to her. She looked up from his feet to look at him.

“I have plenty of extra room in mine,” he said.

His hair was still wet, a few stray droplets falling on the leather of her bag, down the bob of his throat.

She looked down and away.“That stuff is killer for your hair,” she joked.

Because joking was normal, something they were used to. Not whatever her dreams had crafted in her subconscious. It kept her from looking at him as she handed him a few of her things, and it kept her from noticing how their hands brushed as she did so.

He hummed but didn’t properly respond. He wouldn’t stop staring at her, so she was the first to look away.

 

They stood at the door, all of their things neatly packed away, any indication that they had been in the room having vanished save a few untucked sheets and the missing glass from the other day.

Rose closed the door, feeling as if she was leaving something behind, as if a moment had passed her by. She shook her head and led the way to the lobby.

—

 

When she had left Overwatch, her friends had sent her letters. It had taken her years, but she finally wrote them back.

When she hadn’t received a reply from Ava, she had felt her bones shift.

Felt her entire body force itself into a state of unfeeling as she had when she had first been discharged and gotten her prosthetic.

It was the crack of calcium again, a sound she recognized. At the time, it had come from deep within her chest, a rumbling that echoed in her ears until it was all she could hear for days.

When it had finally stopped, Rose had cleaned the entire house, all four floors until they were spotless. Dirty things were suddenly noisy, loud in a world that was already overly so.

The wind echoed throughout the space, and her prosthetic no longer ached.

Michel had arrived at her doorstep a day later, a proposition in hand. _Travel the world, show the people what magic was again, become a star_.

Rose couldn’t say any of the things he had said appealed to her, but she had thought getting away would make the ache in her chest dim. That the world would fill the emptiness long enough so that she could feel normal again.

And she had filled it. Filled it with a variety of petty, useless things until she could pretend the space hadn’t existed to begin with.

She had sewn the hole tight, but deep down she could hear the wind whirring within her. The noises she had tried to silence, the smiles she had used to hide them, began bubbling up again.

—

 

Michel was giving her _that_ look when they entered the hotel.

She had seen it only twice before. Once, when she hadn’t pressed her stage outfit to his satisfaction and another when she had gotten caught giving away her tickets for free. It was a sign that she was misbehaving, a parental sternness that irked her every time it was levied in her direction.

But this time she hadn’t done anything wrong. At least, she didn’t think she had.

She cocked her head to the side, the irritation from earlier that morning spilling over. “Why the look?”

“A word, dear,” was all he said before ushering her into a corner of the lobby, away from Hanzo and prying eyes and ears.

“You should have sent some of the staff away and stayed here,” he whispered harshly.

Her eyes turned hard. “You’re the one who didn’t book on time, I’m not going to penalize them for that.”

“ _Rose_ ,” he said slowly, “you have to consider the company you keep.”

His eyes flitted briefly behind her to where she knew Hanzo was still standing.

She stiffened. “What happened?”

“Rumors, the usual.”

She swiped through the tabloid he held up. Even with the cheap magazines dying out decades ago, people always found a way to talk.

The gif was of the two of them walking into the hotel. The space between them was supposed to be read as romantic by way of the headline.

Rose felt her whole body heat. Spreading out from her cheeks and snaking down to her toes.

She forced herself to calm down when she realized Michel hadn’t stopped staring at her. He was good at telling if she was distressed or nervous for a show. But personal matters were not something she wanted to share with him, friend or no.

“I don’t know what goes on between the two of you,” he gestured vaguely. “But, as your manager, I suggest you put a hamper on it.”

She shook her head, forcing an absent smile on her face. “We’re not—”

“It doesn’t matter, it never has.” He sighed before taking his phone back and slipping it into his pocket. “Just be careful.”

 He walked away to get ready for the show the following night and Rose could only stare at his back before the muted color of the hotel’s walls and carpet blurred her vision.

She hadn’t dated anyone in such a long time— she had forgotten that celebrities were often the subject of gossip when it came to their partners. Unfortunately, who was in whose bed would always be a popular subject.

That she and Hanzo had actually shared a bed was a fact she didn’t want to grapple with in that moment.

“Busy?”

She turned to find Hanzo behind her, his sunglasses drifting past his nose.

She took a step back, widening the space between them. “Yes, just working out logistics for the show this week.”

He grunted, but he eyed the slice of space between them.

 

The elevator was tiny for such a large hotel, and not for the first time, Rose found herself nearly pressed up against him due to the lack of space.

She forced herself into her suitcase to give herself more room. Again, Hanzo watched her. She pretended she didn’t notice.

“You are unnerved.”

“I’m fine.”

“What were you two really talking about?”

She traced her eyes over the garish elevator wallpaper before slowly looking toward him.

She sighed. “You.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Michel was worried about your capabilities again, I reassured him.”

A good lie, but he was looking at her too closely, dissecting.

“He already addressed that.”

“Well, he addressed it again.”

The elevator door opened and she tried to push herself and her luggage into the hall, but he stopped her.

She looked down at his hand on her wrist and then at him again. She could feel her pulse racing in his palm.

[“We promised to work together.”]

[“This has nothing to do with the mission.”]

[“It could.”]

[“It _doesn_ _’t_.”]

[“It _could_.”]

She rolled her eyes, breaking out of code. “God, you’re stubborn.”

“You have already told me this.”

She covered her eyes with her free hand. “It’s embarrassing.”

“The truth often is.”

She dropped her other hand with a sigh. “He was afraid you and I would be perceived as, uhm—an item.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

He still hadn’t let go of her hand.

“So you should maybe try not to get too close to me in public.”

“I see.”

They were in public now and he was too close, so clearly he wasn’t getting the message. She was about to speak again when he interrupted her.

“And in private?”

She felt her pulse pick up once more. He must not have felt her body let out an involuntary shiver at the suggestion in his question because he was smiling in that way he did. A joking mien made its way onto his face.

“Shall I tell the press how cold your feet are?”

She groaned. “You’re the absolute worst.”

She shook her wrist from his grasp as he laughed.

“You know, I used to think you took things too seriously, and now I wonder if that was an elaborate joke of yours too.”

“Perhaps.”

Rose shook her head before grabbing her things and rolling them down the hall.

 

The suite was blank. She thought briefly on her house after she had cleaned it, startlingly bright and clear, nothing in it to indicate anyone else had been there.

Sterile. That spotless, noiseless feeling. Her arm suddenly felt numb. She felt her ribcage give and clenched her fists as a loud, piercing noise shook down her spine. It was too familiar.

“Rose?”

She blinked twice. “Sorry.”

She moved her things inside, claiming the left side of the room as her own.

He was still looking at her strangely from the threshold of her room and she resisted the urge to close the door on him. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was just…present. Something she was still getting used to, apparently.

At the same time, she felt odd creating that distance. She was at fault, not him.

She could feel the question before he asked it. It was silent, pressing up against her uncomfortably between eardrum and precognition. _Are you all right?_

He didn't ask her how she was again, however. Instead, he mussed his own hair and said:  
  
"I'm thinking of cutting it."  
  
It had caught her off guard, and from the look on his face, he had known it had.  
  
He was distracting her.  
  
She wondered briefly when they had gotten to the point where that was understood between them. Where camaraderie and familiarity met, not at odds with each other.  
  
"You wouldn't look good with a buzz cut," she said idly.  
  
"Hmm."  
  
He was closer again, but they were in private and he hadn't exactly promised to stay away from her. She reached out, smoothing his hair with her hand.

He didn’t move away.

“Short hair wouldn’t suit you, either.”

“Are you an accomplished stylist, too? Admirable.”

Her lips twitched. “Was that a joke?”

He was looking at her too closely, reading her face for a response. She couldn’t help but smile at how focused he was.

“Yes,” he decided.

She let out a short laugh before lowering her head, but didn’t remove her hands from him and didn’t step back.

This was why people were reading them as a couple, she thought. She didn’t know when this lack of space between them happened, either, but she wasn’t sure she wanted it to stop.

She looked up at him, and he was still staring at her.

She swallowed. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” she asked.

This time it was his turn to be caught off guard. Both his eyebrows rose.

“I know it’s weird to ask but…”

This whole situation had been a bit of a culture shock, as if she’d been submerged into cold water. Feelings that she shouldn’t feel were now cropping up at every turn, questions she shouldn’t be asking if she was the least bit normal.

She was reminded of their first fight, how he had drawn that line in the sand between them. How she had allowed it, the bickering that was rather childish, and she wondered where they stood now. He seemed like he was wondering himself. Maybe the word wasn’t strong enough, or too strong. It gave Rose a vague feeling of missing home, English making her tongue feel too heavy and dry.

He cocked his head to the side, an overly exhibitive movement for him, before he responded.

“I believe so.”

She finally moved away to unzip her suitcase. “Huh.”

“What?”

“It’s weird.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

She pretended that she was talking about the designation. Not the heat in her body at the vagueness of his statement, burning with the hope that maybe he wanted something else. She pushed away the feeling to the bottom of her mind where the dream lay from this morning.

“We should practice more before tonight,” he said abruptly.

She had liked the way he had held her, remembered the way his thumb had rubbed against her back, and was thinking much too much about his body—how his shoulders looked in that shirt. All in all, a bad idea.

“What? Think I’ve forgotten already?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.

He was looking at her in that way again, his stare unwavering, jaw tight. “I have no doubt in your skill as a dancer— you are impressive.”

They stood staring at each other again and Rose felt her body heat. “Sounds like you just want an excuse to dance with me,” she said, turning away.

She could hear him fall in step behind her, felt his words on her neck as he said: “Perhaps.”

She felt his hand skim the side of her hip, his fingertips tapping on it one by one until he took her in his hand, turning her gently toward him.

His other hand drifted to hers, holding it, lifting it into position.

“May I?”

She nodded, numbly.

She wasn’t breathing, wasn’t moving, so he drifted closer to her. The top of their bodies pressed neatly together. It was at odds with the sigh of space he left between them the last time they practiced.

“Closed position,” he said, answering her silent question, his breath warm against her ear.

She felt herself nod again as he led her slowly across the room.

This hadn’t been what she meant about keeping their distance, but now her mind felt fuzzy this close to him, her face overly warm. Her mind tracing the nonexistent space between them, memorizing the way they fit together.

There was no music, so they moved to an invisible beat, the 2s and 4s demarcated by their breathing. It was slower than the last time they had danced as well, she felt his hand in hers more acutely, her ears ringing as heat began to build between them.

He ended neatly, his hand skimming up her lower back to her shoulder, but not stepping away.

“Okay?” she asked, her voice overly high again.

His eyes had an unusual warmth to them that kept her from moving away as well. The dark circles under his eyes had abated somewhat, their regard soft, almost comforting.

She looked down.

“As I said, you are quite skilled.”

He fell out of position, dropping her hand, but still wouldn’t move away from her.

Her mind screamed for her to establish the distance again, but her body wouldn’t obey.

It didn’t need to.

Just as he leaned down— her phone rang. The ringtone was loud and crisp, piercing the once-pristine silence of the room.

They both froze, listened to it claw at the atmosphere that had been established. Bringing them back to reality.

Hanzo swallowed hard before stepping back and away from her to stand awkwardly at the door to her room.

Rose finally took a breath, pushed a curl behind her ear as her phone continued to ring.

He covered his mouth to clear this throat, and Rose could see a flush of red cascade up his neck.

“You should answer that,” he said.

She was still a bit winded, confused, and still overly breathy when she brought the phone to her ear.

“Hello?”

[”Genji here.”]

[”Oh, hey uhm—”]

She looked up and Hanzo had moved out and away from her room and toward his own.

She pushed down the wave of annoyance that rose in her, too, annoyance she really shouldn’t be feeling anyway, and tried not to dwell on its source for too long. Genji was doing his job, the same job she should be doing.

She took another breath. [“Hey.”] she said again.

[“Is this a bad time?”]

She heard Hanzo’s door click closed from across the small stretch of living room and felt her face warm.

[“No, not at all. Any news?”]

If Rose was speaking to him in person, she knew he would have filled the gap of silence with a raise of his brow, a familial trait, she was sure. His voice had an underlying tone to it that made Rose shift as she listened to him lay out the game plan for that night. Several times she had to ask him to repeat himself, as if the situation she was in a moment prior wasn’t embarrassing enough. She couldn’t focus.

She could feel the memories stack, the meaningless things she had tried filling herself with evaporating and being replaced with something else, something firmer and heavier. Something that felt too much like hope.

[“Rose?”]

[“Yes?”] she chirped.

[“Did you have an exit plan worked out?”]

[“Ah, yes. We should have no problem this time around.”]

A moment of silence that she couldn’t parse.

[“You two are working well together, then?”]

[“It’s progress. I’m sure I can attribute it to whatever inane messages you’re sending him.”]

[“While you know I love to take the credit, you are—”]

Suddenly, the hotel lights flickered and Rose’s call dropped.

She frowned at her phone and the lights both before a text from Genji pinged onto her screen.

Lucio had apparently had some issues with screening their calls, so they would have to stick to text messages from now on.

Rose had replied briefly stating she understood, but couldn’t stop staring at the message. Genji’s unfinished statement left her restless and Rose wanted clarification. Of what, she was unsure.

She shook her head. Ridiculous.

It all was.

She needed to see clearly again, to stop dreaming.

She looked at the clock, she would distract herself with petty silly things again. Take hours to do her hair, her makeup, forget about the fleeting droplets of feeling.

 

She pushed back her hair and got to work.


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

 

 

Rose was seventeen and felt like the world was on her shoulders.  
  
It was as if she was balancing a solar system, her throat the sun, her eyelashes dusted by Mars, every kink and curl an asteroid belt, her ring finger circled by Neptune. Her magic kept it all together and she gave and gave to keep the gravity going. The weight pressing, pulling, until her collarbones shook, until stardust poured from her eyes every night.  
  
This was a burden she could share with no one else.  
  
One day, the stardust had blinded her, the sun had beat against the dip of her neck endlessly. The girl in her had wanted to escape the stars. She had abandoned her chores and headed over to the various tarot shops and fortune tellers that littered the marketplace of New Orleans.  
  
Most of the women she knew, aunties who had taught her rootwork just as her mother had, but with smiles and sweets instead of chores for her efforts.  
  
Today she had a question. It pressed against her heart instead of her shoulders, and had been pressing ever since the last Carnival. She had received dozens of kisses, quick trysts in the back of alleyways where the young would always kiss and never tell.  
  
She had wanted more, needed more.  
  
One auntie had ushered her into her shop after seeing her eyes, the pain in her chest etched across her features. She laid out a deck of tarot cards for Rose to touch, to imbue with her own will and questions, before presenting the spread with long, agile fingers.  
  
The auntie let out a long ‘Ahhh’ as she read the cards and their order.  
  
“You’re searching for something that doesn’t belong to you,” she said.  
  
Rose felt her stomach drop and her heart along with it. She felt the eclipse draping over her sun.  
  
“Why can’t it belong to me?” she asked.  
  
“Healers like you, a Laveau nonetheless, don’t follow the path of partnership, dear.”  
  
It was why all of her relationships were fleeting— why they never lasted. The power of the sun in her throat made her burn too bright, made everyone shy away, caused them to retreat with burnt fingers and burnt hearts to find someone more tepid to cling to.  
  
She hid her tears as she ran from the shop.  
  
_Push it away, tuck it away._  
  
_Pretend the hurt ain’t there._

  
  
—

  
  
She pushed the pincurls back and away from her face, a ponytail of sorts flirting with the back of her shoulders. It was nearly dark, and Rose had spent hours in the bathroom. The clock on her phone told her they were nearly late, but she couldn’t get the necklace Genji gave her on.  
  
It looked a bit gaudy, a large chunk of garnet disguising its true purpose. It was a drive capable of getting the info they needed from RESOLVE’s databases, wherever they were in the maze that Hanzo had discovered the night prior.  
  
Said assassin was pacing outside of her bathroom door. She could practically feel him bite down snide comment after comment until he finally lost his patience.  
  
He sighed, loudly. “If you do not hurry up, there will be no ball to attend.”  
  
She hummed into the bobby pin between her lips. “I didn’t complain when you made us late to things.”  
  
“We were never late.”  
  
She was struggling to get the clasp of her necklace on and after trying for the thirtieth time, gave up.  
  
“And we won’t be late to this, either. Stop setting me back with your backtalk.”  
  
“I do not backtalk,” he said.  
  
Rose stifled a smile and let the moment sit for a minute until she heard Hanzo sigh from the other room.  
  
She laughed, grabbed the necklace, and exited the bathroom, a wave of perfume, and setting powder following after her.  
  
“Hey, can you help me with this?” She handed him her necklace without looking up, too busy fussing with her earrings.  
  
She turned back around when she hadn’t heard a response from him.  
  
He was staring at her, unmoving, necklace dangling from his fingertips.  
  
She didn’t want to focus on their proximity again, or the look he was giving her that was bordering on salacious. “Hanzo?”  
  
“A different dress,” he said. He took his time letting his eyes pass over her.  
  
Rose licked her lips. “It’s better for waltzing.”  
  
It was black, strapless at the top, and loose and flaring at the leg. Enough skin to be fun, but not enough that it would raise any brows.  
  
She had ordered it, at a loss for what to wear during events like these, her last attempt ill fitting and uncomfortable. With how he was looking at her, she assumed she succeeded this time around.  
  
He cleared his throat and reoriented. “Turn back around.”  
  
She did so, and she felt his hands skirt briefly across her collarbone as he adjusted the chain. His hands weren’t cold, but they weren’t hot either. A soothing heat raced across her skin.  
  
The weird buzzing that was so characteristic of their touch was gone.  
  
Now there was only temperature, texture. She could feel the calluses on his forefinger, the result of his bowmanship, and the natural warmth of his palms brush against her neck. She tried not to think about how much she liked his hands on her, but he was taking his good time with the necklace and neither of them was speaking.  
  
Finally, it snapped on with a click. Rose turned around swiftly to thank him.  
  
He only nodded, his jaw tense.  
  
She cocked her head to the side, mimicking his scrutiny. “You got your tie on, I see.”  
  
 He raised a brow. “Via symbiosis, I’m sure.”  
  
She huffed out a laugh. “Before I forget—” she went back in her room quickly and retrieved the flowers at her desk— “here.”  
  
She pinned the iris neatly onto his suit pocket.  
  
“In case you need an extract.” She gestured to her own iris pinned to the top of her dress. They had gotten lucky last time, but failed performances were good lessons. This was a link, a bond that would lead Rose to him.  
  
“Thank you, Rose,” he said, his regard soft again.  
  
She forced herself to look away. “We should go,” she said abruptly.  
  
She took her purse and made a beeline for the door.  
  
He grabbed her wrist again, stopping her in her tracks.  
  
She sighed as she turned to face him. “You really ought to stop doing that.”  
  
“I know,” he dropped her hand, let his own drift into his pant pocket.  
  
She watched him watch her, they were wasting time, this she knew, but question after question burned on her tongue.  
  
She wanted to know why he kept looking at her like that. What the meaning was behind his touches, lingering and soft. Why he wanted to dance with her, why he even bothered.  
  
But at the same time, she didn’t want to know the answers, didn’t want to dredge up the feelings and memories she had long suppressed. This would be their last ordeal together. After this, he would likely go back to Overwatch. His recent reconciliation with his brother made the prospect more than probable.  
  
She would be alone again, so there was little point asking him the meaning behind actions she wouldn’t see the fruition of. She didn’t want to burn him, not like she had everyone else.  
  
She stepped back from him, cut a deeper slice of space between them.  
  
“Let’s go.”  
  
Again, he looked at the room she had created between them, his eyes hardening this time before he nodded.  
  
It was better this way.  


—

 

She should have paid more attention to the physical.  
  
So caught up was she with the what ifs, the metaphysics from here to there, that she hadn’t seen herself as disposable, vulnerable— human.  
  
But the physical always had a habit of catching up, and for her, it caught up in zinc and red, blood gushing down her lover’s arm— Ava had been dying. And she was a healer, the sun. She had had to piece her back together, the compulsion impossible to ignore.  
  
Rose could feel her slip away, so she had used her body— the sun burning in her fingertips— to lift her back up again. Ava had been heavy, Rose’s ligaments had torn, frozen, splintered, until there was nothing left of her arm that could be salvaged.  
  
No one asked to be burned, scarred, hacked and flayed— no one asked to die. But Rose considered again when she looked at her newly outfitted arm that no one asked to live, either.  
  
There was an imbalance in the physical and metaphysical between them. One life levied against the other. Rose had never asked for anything in return, never would, but the burden had laid heavy on Ava’s shoulders, just as it had been restructured on Rose’s—an arm for an arm, a relationship for a life. She had made her choice, and she had chosen to heal.  
  
Just as her auntie had said all those years ago, she was a Laveau first.  
  
The end wasn’t loud or raucous like Rose had thought it might be. Instead, pin drop after pin drop of silence followed.  
  
She would hear its cry against her wooden floors for years.  
  
She would push that down too, ignore that too, pretend she hadn’t heard it. Pretend it hadn’t hurt.

  
  
—

 

Her hand drifted in and out of palms, gloved and bare. The many partners she danced with that night nearly hesitant as they saw metal instead of flesh and tried to smile as they stepped into her space for a waltz. Rose smiled back, her practiced mask making its debut once more.  
  
Dancing was the easiest part.  
  
Her partners, as it turned out, were usually less experienced than her, or had a terrible case of two left feet. Either way, she blended in effortlessly.  
  
They had switched to ear pieces for convenience sake, hers decorative enough that it seemed a part of her earring. Hanzo abused the convenience of it to tell her how flawed each and every one of her partners forms were.  
  
[”You may as well have been leading that one.”]  
  
She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly enough that she was sure he could see her from wherever he was perched.  
  
The evening had just started and it would be odd if one of them disappeared now, so they both remained in the main hall, biding their time until one of the chairman’s long speeches gave them the opportunity to infiltrate the lower floors.  
  
Hanzo would go down as planned, but the flower Rose provided him offered an easier exit plan than what they had to contend with the last time.  
  
The last of the dances ended for the evening. Rose smiled, catching her breath as the orchestra ended their refrain with a flourish. She clapped with everyone else and her feet thanked her when she was finally able to sit down at her table. The floor quickly filled with waiters and those chained to their seats beforehand. Rose found herself next to Mrs. Sato again, who was chatting about everything and anything.  
  
Rose shifted her eyes away from the electric banner that had been hoisted up, “Heal the world” digitized in bold, cursive letters. She could hear as the sign buzzed on into the night, barely able to keep up with the chatter around her.  
  
[“The Sato woman will notice your absence,”] Hanzo said into her ear-piece.  
  
She nodded and looked in his general direction when her table erupted into a flurry of laughs at said woman’s antics. She was on her third glass of wine, and truly didn’t need any more, but Hanzo was right, she was too talkative to leave unattended.  
  
When Mrs. Sato finished her cup of her wine, Rose poured her another glass, a hand on her shoulder as she laughed along with the rest of the table.  
  
“Tell me you have another story,” she said with a smile.  
  
Mrs. Sato didn’t even look down at her refilled glass, merely took another generous sip and continued.  
  
  
Despite the idle chatter and free-flowing alcohol that circulated amongst the attendees, Rose was unnerved.  
  
Contrary to what most people thought, magic was not about fooling, it was about feeling. The rush of the wind through one’s hair gave one freedom and spirit, the beat of the sun against one’s neck brought passion to one’s lips and fingertips, and the bite of ice and snow against one’s ears and nose dredged up self reflection and clairvoyance.  
  
Magic rarely misled.  
  
So, when Rose felt ice trickle down her spine, when her mind crafted a vision of a masked face before she turned to look for herself, she knew it hadn’t led her astray. A man, tall, dark, and imposing stood on the fringes of her vision. He ghosted on the edges of the party, but his sight on her never wavered. A stark, bone mask hid his face, unlike the rest of the ball’s guests. His garb was an eclipse—a black suit over an even darker dress shirt. His hands were clammy and brown, pushed neatly against his back as he paced around the room.  
  
When she turned to look at him fully, he disappeared, but she knew he had been there. The apprehension hadn’t left her.  
  
She forced herself to shake off the feeling of unease and continued chatting with the other donors. Mrs. Sato provided ample distraction. She was starting to sway in a way that was clearly from an overabundance of wine and not from the soft melody of the live music. She gripped onto Rose’s arm, leaning her weight onto her. Rose had refilled her glass three times in the course of the hour.  
  
“Isn’t it a wonderful evening, dear?” she asked, her words a bit harder to decipher after her sixth glass of Pinot Noir.  
  
“You certainly seem to be enjoying yourself. Shall I walk you back to your room?” Rose asked.  
  
She shook her head, swaying all the while. “I wouldn’t want to miss the chairman! A trip to the ladies room instead?”  
  
Rose noticed the stark absence of the guard Hanzo had supposedly killed, but didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps this was a test, she thought.  
  
She obliged, despite knowing what she was signing up for.  
  
  
She spent no less than an hour keeping the older woman’s hair back as she vomited into the all too pretty porcelain toilets of the bathrooms. Some test. Mrs. Sato sobbed as she knelt, blubbering that it had been seven drinks and not six. She howled that she missed her son and that “nothing was the same anymore” since the war.  
  
“I didn’t always use to be like this!” she cried into the toilet water. “Ever since my son passed—”  
  
More tears and more vomit.  
  
“A future… I’ve taken it for granted. This is all I have left.”  
  
She flung her hand outwards toward the empty bathroom, the tainted porcelain bowl, and her discarded purse on the floor.  
  
Even what little she had was faulty, a pipe dream that would never come true. RESOLVE too, was fake.  
  
Mrs. Sato gripped onto the toilet seat but seemed to maintain a scrap of her dignity as she wiped away the thick trails of mascara under her eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Rose said. Her hand was a firm press against her back as the older woman vomited into the porcelain again.  
  
And in a way, Rose was sorry, for the woman’s involvement in an organization she would have to inevitably tear down, and for the amount of wine she had forced her to imbibe. It wasn’t as if she knew what Talon was really doing with her money.  
  
She dried a few of Mrs. Sato’s crocodile tears with toilet paper. She wondered again why the idea of her having a son wasn’t foreign to Rose. It was as if she had heard it somewhere before, seen her face in an electric bulletin or the many tabloids that inundated the internet after the explosion at Overwatch’s headquarters. An image of her face amongst debris popped in Rose’s mind, a flimsy soap bubble of a memory before Mrs. Sato popped it with her voice.  
  
“People like you don’t care,” she said in an accusatory tone.  
  
Ire stained her features,  her cheeks and eyes suddenly red and incensed. Her drunkenness taking a turn for the worst.  
  
She pointed at Rose. “You-you’re a celebrity, just like them. You’re just here to see your name when the credits roll.”  
  
She swayed against the toilet seat, hiccupping in-between jibes.  
  
“People like you disappear before the real trouble starts.”  
  
She thought of the despair the war left behind in Louisiana, how Overwatch had cut out the tumor, but had failed to rehabilitate the body. People were left wandering and limbless for days, weeks, until Rose intervened where she could. She couldn’t help but sympathize, but sympathy and understanding didn’t keep the anger at bay.  
  
They were meaningless words vomited up alongside Mrs. Sato’s spittle. Still, the barbs tore into Rose’s skin. She could feel them embedded into her muscle and suddenly she was on the battlefield again. Blood dripping down her arm.  
  
Rose moved her hand from Mrs. Sato’s back and stood at a respectable distance.  
  
She should have put on her mask, cajoled the woman into her room, and got on with the rest of the evening, but she was not one to let someone falsely depict her. She wouldn’t start now.  
  
“I didn’t get this arm by disappearing,” Rose hissed.  
  
She hadn’t bothered covering it up for the ball, the length of it exposed in the dim lighting of the bathroom. The smooth, silver chrome at odds with the brown of her skin, the black velvet of her gown.  
  
Mrs. Sato was staring at it now, as if she had just realized it was there, the very mention of it sobering.  
  
“I lost a part of my life I can never get back.” Years that would always be etched into her skin, time spent that would never be undone. Blood spilled that could never be washed clean.  
  
She had pushed down the anger too long. The hurt, the loneliness, and she couldn’t stop it from overflowing now. She hadn’t felt this angry in a long while, and over something so petty, so insignificant. It felt good.  
  
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.” Rose finished.  
  
Both true and untrue, but her bitterness was unabashed and as candid as the mess of the bathroom. It was sloppy, but it felt more natural than the sterile clean Rose had surrounded herself with over the years.  
  
Mrs. Sato looked down, ashamed and more than a little aware of their present situation. If the vomiting hadn’t drained her, this exchange had.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said.  
  
Rose could feel the anger plateau. She had said too much, more than she needed to, really, but she couldn’t find it in her to feel ashamed or abashed because of it.  
  
“I—”  
  
“Perhaps it is best that I head to bed.” Mrs. Sato stood swaying and laughing, but caught herself on the bathroom door.  
  
Rose supported her again, wrapping her arm around the woman’s waist. “Let me help.”  
  
Mrs. Sato stared at her but said nothing further as Rose dragged her to her room.  
  
  
After extorting the room-number from the out-of-sorts woman and prying her hands from her dress, Rose tucked her into her hotel bed. She was drooling now, the alcohol finally having knocked her out. Rose shook her head and put a bucket by her bed for the morning sickness that was sure to follow.  
  
Some nurse habits never died.  
  
She quietly slipped out of her room, closing the door with a gentle click.  
  
The hallways were carpeted from floor to ceiling. Gaudy, and odd considering the bare-bones approach to the side of the building Hanzo had described the other night.  
  
Speaking of, his voice echoed in her ear. [“Status?”] he asked.  
  
[“She’s knocked out cold, how’s the ballroom?”]  
  
[“The chairman is starting soon. I will begin my descent as soon as you return.”]  
  
His voice had been stiffer ever since they left. Less humor in his intonation and word choice. Rose had created the space, and he was slowly widening it. She was about to confirm when the same feeling from earlier that evening raced down her spine.  
  
She heard it before she saw it.  
  
A hissing. Low and soft. It sounded as if sand was grating against the air, strangling the untouchable.  
  
Rose pressed herself against the wall, peeking behind the corner she was to turn around seconds ago.  
  
[“Rose?”]  
  
She turned off her communicator, the sound of the grating nearly drowning out the device, regardless.  
  
Dread shook her, froze her to the spot as an impossibly black ribbon manifested from thin air. It spread, twisted in on itself and took the form of a man. She saw the side of a bone mask before his head turned toward her. She ducked back behind the corner to hide.  
  
She could feel his presence overwhelm her, a rush of cold air forcing its way into her throat and lungs, suffocating her. The last time she had experienced this feeling was when she was in Medbay, the rush of antiseptic and body fluid in the air. Death. He reeked of it.  
  
She took a sharp intake of breath as she heard him shift toward her.  
  
The only thought in her head was ‘ _away_ ’.  
  
She still had Mrs. Sato’s cardkey hot in her hand. She reopened the door quickly and slipped inside.  
  
She could hear him outside of the door, the grating associated with his presence only growing louder.  
  
The dark ribbons misted underneath the doorway.  
  
Rose cursed and made her way into the small room’s bathroom before locking the door. It wouldn’t stop him, the first door wouldn’t either, but she needed time to focus.  
  
She concentrated. _Out and away_. None of the hotel was familiar to her, but she had to get out. The room she had spent longest in was the main room, but that would cause too much of a stir.  
  
She felt the cold trickle into the room, and knew he had made his way inside. She could hear Mrs. Sato snoring, oblivious to the danger.  
  
She forced herself in the corner, the tile loud under her heels.  
  
Tiles that matched the ones from downstairs.  
  
There, she would have to go back to the bathroom in the dance hall. Even with a risk of people, it was less noticeable than in front of hundreds of donors.  
  
She closed her eyes and pictured the porcelain tiles, the once pristine bathroom she nursed Mrs. Sato in.  
  
Away.  
  
The drip of the faucet, the smell of vomit.  
  
Away.  
  
The powder room, pink and overly perfect.  
  
She could feel the ice, hear the grating creep into the bathroom.  
  
Hanzo’s voice chiding at her ear.  
  
She opened her eyes and went.  
  
  
She fell in the same stall she was in a half hour ago. Thankfully the bathroom was still empty, but her head was spinning. She fell against the stall, breathing heavily.  
  
She smoothed out her dress and just barely heard buzzing in her purse as she picked up her phone.  
  
She answered it, out of breath. [“Ready when you are.”]

  
  
—

  
  
It had been a hot day when Genji had first visited her home.  
  
The wind had been blowing hot air in her face all morning, but she didn’t feel like being inside in the cold manufactured air.  
  
She didn’t ask why he came to her doorstep, she had long since stopped questioning that sort of thing.  
  
Instead, she smiled and invited him in for tea.  
  
They sat together on the balcony in the back, admiring the sunset in a companionable silence despite just having met.  
  
He hadn’t touched his cup.  
  
“Would you like anything else?” she asked.  
  
He shook his head. “I simply like the smell.”  
  
Rose had shrugged and rolled up her sleeves, the last sigh of heat blowing through the bayou. The red heat of the sun making it too hot to cover up. The crickets had been loud that day, the heat a prelude to their evening sonatas.  
  
He had eyed the metal of her arm in a way that Rose had thought to be rude at first before he unraveled the wrappings around his head and neck.  
  
She hadn’t stared, merely took away his still-full cup with hers to the kitchen.  
  
He didn’t waste words, didn’t bother to cut through the silence with small talk. He looked at her through the green visor masking his face.  
  
“Do you believe in fate?” he asked.  
  
She had laughed, not at his expense, but at the frankness of the question. He seemed to understand this, as his posture was still loose and accepting.  
  
“I live it,” she had said. “I have no choice but to believe in it.”  
  
He was silent for a moment as he considered. “I used to think that as well.”  
  
She finished washing the rest of their dishes. “And now?”  
  
“I am learning to take it a day at a time,” he had said.  
  
She had hummed, a polite smile a placeholder for a response she didn’t have.  
  
She couldn’t see beyond his visor, he hadn’t taken it off during his first visit, but she had known he had smiled back.  
  
He had re-wrapped the light fabric around his head and neck again, gently covering up the cybernetic muscle and skin.  
  
“Angela wishes you well,” he said after thanking her for the company.  
  
Rose had froze, the past digging at her side. She looked down before nodding and wishing her the same.  
  
When the sun had set, he had set off again, fading into the dark and foliage of the swamp.  
  
A day at a time, huh?

  
  
—

  
  
[“Level B-5.”] Hanzo said.  
  
She was smiling, keeping her face agreeable to hide the anxiety that was nearly overwhelming her. The chairman provided ample distraction for everyone else at her table, but not for Rose.  
  
Every second that went by without a response made her uncomfortable.  
  
She was still tired from making the jump to the bathroom earlier that evening and she hoped that Hanzo wouldn’t run into any trouble. But then again, she had hoped for that the other night and they had nearly gotten caught.  
  
The only upside was that she hadn’t seen the man with the bone mask since she gave him the slip earlier.  
  
[“B-6,”] he said.  
  
Only two more floors.  
  
Rose forced herself to focus on what the chairman was saying. If not to calm her nerves, then at least to not be caught unawares.  
  
He appealed to the self-conscious side of people who wanted to be told their need would be met, their guilt assuaged, if they only supported RESOLVE. They were doing what no one else could.  
He spoke of this new epoch as a time of healing, of resurrection. At first she had been charmed with the idea, but now it irked her. You couldn’t throw money at a wound and hope it would close up eventually. She knew from experience. Even with all the people she had helped, there was always something else to fix, to stitch or mend.  
  
[“B-7,”] Hanzo said.  
  
Rose tapped at her collarbone, thumbing the spot where her necklace had rested. She and Hanzo had exchanged it seamlessly when Rose had reemerged from the bathroom. Rose had also passed along information about the bone-masked man and Hanzo said he would keep an eye out.  
  
Rose resisted looking around the room for him again.  
  
Another flurry of clapping. Rose started before clapped along, the reaction automatic now.  
  
[“B-8, I will be through the door in two minutes,” Hanzo said.]  
  
“If you don’t choose to heal, if we don’t make the effort, we are broken, contributing to a broken world.” The chairman continued from his podium.  
  
Rose finally looked up from her plate. He was looking in her direction. The same odd feeling his stare invoked made her shiver and look down and away.  
  
[“One minute.”]  
  
He began again. “If we don’t stop helping, if we don’t make an effort, others will decide how the job will be done. And we all heard that explosion, there’s no need for a repeat performance.”  
  
Those around her chuckled, some smiled.  
  
“Nothing in this life is free, after all.”  
  
[“Going in now,” Hanzo said.]  
  
Rose could barely hear him. The chairman’s words had been hers, words she had been taught long ago.  
  
Words that rootworkers like her were taught from the very beginning. The give and the take and what it meant. The chairman’s eyes had shifted to a different part of the room as his audience began cheering. But she had heard him loud and clear, he was dangerous.  
  
[“Rose.”]  
  
She couldn’t prove it with feelings, however. That’s why they were here now, to prove it with evidence.  
  
Rose slipped away from her table and back into the bathroom, the cheering crowd masking her absence with their cries.  
  
The bathroom had been cleaned since she had last been in it, thankfully. The smell of bleach strong and at odds with all the dainty pink that enveloped the space.  
  
[“Where are you?”] she asked.  
  
[“It’s a lab of some sort.”]  
  
She frowned. Suddenly the minimalist decor he had described earlier made a bit more sense now. Still, it was strange, why so close to an event they were having?  
  
[“Are there any computers?”] she asked.  
  
[“Not yet, I will keep searching.”]  
  
[“Hurry.”]  
  
[“Naturally.”]  
  
She rolled her eyes, despite him not being able to see it.  
  
She could still hear the chairman from the bathroom and tried to zero in on something, anything else. The faucet was no longer dripping, the only sound left was her heel tapping against the tile and Hanzo’s breathing in her ear-piece. He had left his side of the feed on, to make sure she heard his going-ons if she couldn’t see, she supposed.  
  
Now it was a distraction.  
  
She was reminded of the hotel again. If she closed her eyes, she could feel herself there. The too-soft sheets, the sun warm on her face as she slept, his hands on her waist.  
  
She opened her eyes and groaned, pressing her forehead against the wall.  
  
Why was she thinking of that?  
  
She had just decided that was a bad idea, it hadn’t even been a day yet. It was like the anger that had bubbled up when she had yelled at Mrs. Sato. She kept forcing it down, only for it to resurface again and again.  
  
She was tired of it.  
  
And it felt nice to let it, to not push it away.  
  
She had needed to let go for years now.  
  
She had needed to breathe.  
  
She _needed_ to talk to him.  
  
[“Rose?”]  
  
She took a breath. “Yes?”  
  
[“I will need a quick extraction after this,”] Hanzo said.  
  
[“How quickly?”]  
  
[“One minute,”] he said. As if sensing her subsequent questions, he added: [“There is a patrol.”]  
  
[“Okay.”]  
  
Silence. [“This is the quickest way, but I can find another if—”]  
  
She shook her head. [“I’ll be fine.”]  
  
[“Are you certain?”]  
  
The quicker this was done with, the quicker she could sort everything else out. The quicker she could put this mission behind her and sort out the thoughts and feelings in her that hadn’t faded. The quicker she could make things right between them again. [“I am.”]  
  
She closed her eyes and focused in on the flower she had given him until she could see it clearly in her mind’s eye. [“Ready.”]  
  
[“On my mark, then.”]  
  
Rose counted the seconds in her head. _One, two, three—_  
  
[“Now.”]  
  
Away.  
  
  
Her mind felt rubbery when she landed in the room Hanzo was in. The lighting was dim, nearly nonexistent, which was good for them, but couldn’t be for whatever scientist seemed to run the place. Large voluminous cylinders were stacked vertically against the wall like caskets. They covered every inch of the wall and stretched on indefinitely into the darkness. The floor was oddly sticky despite there being no sign of liquid that had spilled. In fact, there was no smell whatsoever in the dark, cool room. Walls and walls of fluids and oddities, but none emitted a scrap of fragrance.  
  
Whatever the bone-masked man was, Rose thought for a moment that he must have come from someplace like this.  
  
Her eyes took in the computer and the drive that was taking whatever data was there. Hanzo’s fingers raced across the keyboard before the drive turned green and he snatched it from the port it was in.  
  
“Done.”  
  
He hesitated before grabbing her wrist.  
  
He nodded to her, signifying his readiness, and she nodded back before closing her eyes.  
  
Rose concentrated again, but her mind still felt like elastic, too stretchy and not stable enough.  
  
Hanzo’s grip on her hand tightened as they heard footsteps.  
  
There was no time to waste, it would have to do. She set the place in her mind’s eye and she almost had them there, could almost taste the bitter air of the bathroom stall, could almost imagine their feet on the floor of the pretty pink porcelain. Almost.  
  
 They shifted. Away from whatever place they were in before, but not to the place that Rose had envisioned.  
  
  
They landed in a hallway. Rolled would be a better descriptor, really. Rose fell on her shoulder, her prosthetic taking the brunt of the damage but winding her all the same. She coughed up breath after breath, unable to get her lungs to cooperate. Sweat rolled down her forehead and stung her eyes as she tried to lift her head.  
  
The room was spinning and she hadn’t even gotten up yet.  
  
When she tried to stand and reorient, her legs crumpled beneath her. Exhaustion, mental and physical, made it near impossible to move. She should have been more careful, more cognizant of the overuse of her powers, but it was much too late to think on it now.  
  
Hanzo seemed to be adjusting faster than her, she could hear him try to rouse her by her side, could feel the footsteps of another patrol thrum across her body the longer she lay there.  
  
She was about to make her second attempt at standing when Hanzo lifted her without much fuss and ran.  
  
She was pressed against his chest, heard his heart thrum wildly in his ribs as he moved. They were running up stairs now, one flight, and then another. The only stops were to avoid what Rose knew to be guards.  
  
Soon, she could feel his muscles grow lank, he was tired.  
  
Again, she forced herself to focus. Getting her bearings was even more difficult with the jumpy movement back and forth.  
  
Finally he stopped.  
  
Rose looked up, could see the floor number etched into the corner of the hall. B-1. They were right there. Close, but not close enough.  
  
The corner they were in was closed off, the next patrol likely on its way. They were trapped.  
  
Hanzo set her down.  
  
They couldn’t run anymore and Rose didn’t trust herself to teleport them away again.  
  
She swallowed as he seemed to be digesting the situation as well, his eyes thoughtful, his shoulders taut with stress.  
  
The footsteps of the two patrols were audible now.  
  
It was as if Rose was on stage, being chided by an angry, invisible audience.  
  
The idea presented itself to her addled brain, and finding no other options, she took it.  
  
She pushed herself up against the wall, and calmed herself. “Play along,” she said to him.  
  
She transgressed the slice of space between them as he looked at her.  
  
It was easy enough to pretend.  
  
They had been in close proximities enough in the past few weeks for the nearness to seem natural, normal. Rose would be lying if that was the only reason, however.  
  
The distance she created earlier that day seemed flimsy now. It disintegrated underneath her touch.  
  
There was no way out without catching the attentions of the guard that they could both already hear steadily  approaching. They had seconds to get away. If they couldn’t run, they had to act.  
  
She let herself draw closer.  
  
The first few breaths before were short and thick. She didn’t look him in the eye, but pressed her hand to his chest letting it wander up his neck. He didn’t shy away.  
  
Closer.  
  
His lapel crumpled underneath her hand as she gripped it, pulling him nearer to her. He didn’t need much prompting, his own hands already finding her hips and mimicking her actions in their game of pretend.  
  
The footsteps grew nearer and Rose looked him in the eye, hoped she looked apologetic enough, before she pressed her lips to his.  
  
He seemed to have understood, as he responded almost immediately, his mouth pliant and soft as he pressed her back into the wall.  
  
She didn’t stop to think if they were being convincing enough or not. Couldn’t help but get caught up in the way his hands were gripping her hips. Every stroke of his tongue and scant in-between breaths they shared before starting again too distracting to break out and away from.  
  
Closer.  
  
At some point he lifted her, his hands running goose bumps along her legs. She couldn’t tell if he was adding authenticity to their act, but with the way he was holding her, pressing their bodies neatly together, she couldn’t find it in herself to care.  
  
She remembered wrapping her legs around his middle, remembered letting out a breath that bordered on a moan as his teeth scraped against her neck— everything else lost in the haze of their bodies. His presence fogging her senses until she heard vague shouting in the distance that forced them to pry apart.  
  
He let her down gently, his hands still lingering.  
  
The embarrassment that came with having to pull down the length of her dress was real, though she could hardly remember when he had hiked it up past her thighs.  
  
“You’re not supposed to be in here. Find a different room to fuck in.” The guard said, the others behind him cranky looking and annoyed.  
  
She remembered breathing out an earnest apology, remembered being ushered out of the room and seeing the guard give Hanzo a shrewd look before closing the door on them.  
  
She hazarded a glance at him and wiped at the excess lipstick that was doubtlessly smeared on her mouth.  
  
He realized it must have been on his as well as he took out the handkerchief from his front pocket and wiped it across his own. He wasn’t quite getting it all and she should have just ignored him and walked down the hall to tidy herself up in the bathroom, but she didn’t.  
  
“Here,” she gently pried the napkin from his hands and wiped the remainder away. His hands were still at his sides and she desperately wanted them not to be.  
  
When she finished, she handed it back to him and started when he caught her chin in his hand. He used his thumb to wipe the bottom of her lips once and then twice, clearing away the excess red before releasing her. She could see him swallow once—hard, his eyes still on her lips.  
  
They were too close, she wasn’t sure how to widen the distance between them. A door closed in a different hallway and he stepped away, clearing his throat once.  
  
“I’ll see you at the room later,” he said, his voice deeper then it usually was, tinted with an edge that made Rose want to cross her legs.  
  
She nodded stiffly, pushing a hair behind her ear.  
  
“I’ll see you then.” She said, internally berating herself for repeating him.  
  
He didn’t seem to notice, his face slowly regaining its natural stoicism. She quickly turned on her heel, away from him and back toward the main ballroom.  
  
No one noticed her slink back into her seat and she clapped with everyone else as the speech ended, but she could barely remember the closing remarks.  
  
Her mind kept falling back to that moment, kept replaying those desperate seconds, recalling the heat of his hands, his teeth on her neck, and the feeling of disappointment when he had let go.  
  
“Shit,” she said under her breath.  
  
The clapping continued, a standing ovation rising around her, but she could barely hear it.

  
  
“ _Shit_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review~


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those still keeping up with this story, thank you so much for your patience! These were two very difficult chapters to unpack and I needed the extra time after finals week kicked my ass. 
> 
> Please enjoy! 
> 
> (And don't forget to review! It keeps me going!)

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was minuscule, lilliputian, irrelevant— he could not stop thinking about it.

 

He had been caught off guard, carried away by the press of her against him— her skin supple in his hands. 

It had all been a facade, and he was merely being authentic. 

The excuse was a bad one, but that did not stop him from telling it to himself again and again. 

When they got back to the hotel, he continued to do so.

When she locked herself in her room to meditate— the smell of incense drifting into the main room— he made the repetition mantra. 

When Genji asked for details of what had transpired, he had mentally edited out that particular event. Tucked it neatly away along with the reminder that it was not noteworthy to begin with. He was refusing to bring it up because of how Genji would misconstrue it. That was all. 

“I am glad things went smoothly.” Genji said. 

It did not feel that way. It felt bumpy and complicated, and he should have let those thoughts even themselves out until they were not. 

He was tired. 

He was caught off guard. 

She was— 

He was— 

Inauthentic. 

It was best that they move on.

These were the excuses his consciousness made up for him even as he retired for the night. His subconscious and dreams were not nearly as creative. 

When he closed his eyes that night, heavy as they were, her perfume was still thick on his neck and wrists. 

Which is why when they ended up tangled up in his sheets, hot skin brushing against each other, he did not care to figure out why. 

She was beautiful above him, her hips firm in his hands as they rocked slowly against his. She tugged at his lips with her own, her skin ghosting against him as she whispered something he did not catch. He asked her to repeat herself, but she simply laughed, throwing her head back, thick brown twists bouncing against her shoulders. He reached up to brush them from her face, the light streaming in from the window bathing her in an ethereal light as she continued to grind into him. 

She kissed him and the feeling from the night before came back tenfold. How good she felt pressed up against him, how desperate he was to prolong their contact— how hollow this encounter seemed in comparison.

It was then that he knew that the woman before him was not Rose, and it was then, despite a battle with conscious and unconscious, want and need, that he forced himself to wake.

 

—

  

He was sweating, out of breath, and hard. The hotel sheets sticking to his flesh and only frustrating him further. 

He cursed, threw the covers off his form and wrapped a towel around his waist, thankful that he and Rose no longer shared a bed. 

He had always been a dreamer, knew some of his thoughts ran in circles, chasing numbers, plans, and formulas. Now they were chasing her. 

He could not stop thinking of her. 

Of her hair, gossamers tickling his face and neck; of her body, gentle and warm in his hands; of her voice, the imaginings of her whispering his name, moaning it; of her eyes on him, soft and mischievous. 

The water only made it worse, hot or cold. His mind playing tricks on him, envisioning her body between him and the tiles, her voice echoing in his ear as he washed himself.

He turned off the water with a grunt, still frustrated. 

 

He had been taught to eliminate distractions, push those who could not aid him to the wayside.  
  
She _was_ distracting.  
  
But he had no desire to be rid of her.  
  
Perhaps, he thought, this was a weakness. He ruminated on the words Genji left him with after their first meeting in years, and after much thought and deliberation began to believe that maybe it was instead, growth—the tiniest fledgling of a new beginning sprouting at the base of his spine.  
  
The want to be around others.  
  
Still, the distractions persisted. As he got ready for the day, he remembered the smell of her body after her showers, her lounging on the couch after a long day, the length of her legs uncharacteristically bare. The conversation she made with him light and nonsensical, but having the undertone of sarcasm and her biting intellect beneath each remark and sentence.  
  
Distracting.  
  
He recalled how they joked, as friends did. It had been quite some time since he had had one. Longer still since a relationship had not been marred by duty and the innumerable expectations stacked upon him. It felt warm, inviting, as if before he had spent days walking in a bitter cold. She was a hearth, her smile a balm to frostbitten fingers, her laugh a salve to an inner ache he had not sated in years.  
  
But he wanted more.  
  
He had always been the selfish child out of he and Genji and he had been reticent to grow out of it before he had embraced his role as the eldest. But he felt that old selfishness well up in him whenever he thought of her. He felt as if he were a child again, and every hour that ticked away from them was another where Rose would not be with him, near him. And the idea was interminable, unshakably so.  
  
She was not his, and yet he desperately wanted her to be.  
  
He could still feel her lips on his from that night. The warmth of her body pressed against his, and he had wanted to feel it again and again, to latch onto it— her. 

Clearly she was acting, something she was predisposed to, being on stage as often as she was.  
  
If Rose wanted anything to do with him in that way, she would say so. She had always been clear with her words. She was practical in that way, one of the many traits he admired in her.  
  
In a few days’ time they would go their separate ways. Hanzo would get on one plane, she on another to finish her tour. She did not actually need a bodyguard, did not truly need him.  
  
The thought made him more restless than he would care to admit. 

He spent the rest of the day in fraught mediation.

 

—

 

When Hanzo was younger, he had had a strange fascination with protecting bugs. A contradiction, as they had a habit of dying often and prematurely. 

He had gotten into the habit after his father had taken he and Genji to a Buddhist temple for a week’s vacation. 

Every morning, the gong reverberated throughout the compound and they would listen to a long, drawn out sermon, followed by a minimalist breakfast with no meat. 

Hanzo had tried to be polite, to serve as an example for Genji, but he had grown hungrier and hungrier as the days wore on until his stomach had growled one morning during the sermon, _loudly_. 

“I undertake the precept to refrain from taking life,” The monk recited. He turned to regard Hanzo. “Kūkai would wish for us to spare all life, even if it does lead to smaller bellies.” 

Hanzo had been too embarrassed to eat even the small breakfast they were served that day.

 

When they had returned home, Hanzo had made it a habit of avoiding ants and eating around the meat they were served during dinner. 

When the man was shot in front of him, Hanzo’s mind had tried to justify the contradictions in his father’s actions. Surely he had given the command to protect them, to keep their family from unraveling.

The older he got, the more he saw that same lie twisted, ensnaring him and the rest of his family until it lost all meaning.

Who was worth protecting, who was not? 

It was only recently the lie had been unfolded, the truth a sliver he had held up to the light and examined carefully. 

_Protect what is important. Rebuild until you find those important things._

 

—

 

It was the day of her performance. 

Hanzo was ready ahead of schedule. ‘ _For once_ ,’ he could practically hear Rose say, filling in the jibes she would have levied at him in her stead. 

She had yet to leave her room. The moments he skirted in and out of the main room for food and water had been silent ones. 

The only indication of her presence was in the steady burn of the incense that wafted throughout the apartment. 

He hesitated at her door. She must know what time it was, though the lateness was unlike her. He lowered his hand from knocking and looked at his watch again. 

They had an hour or so. If she was ready now, they could still make it via regular transportation. 

When she had yet to emerge five minutes later, he knocked. "Rose," he called out.

No answer. 

He furrowed his brow before knocking again. “We will be late.”

A second time with no response. 

Hanzo tried the door and it was not locked. He cautiously opened it.

Rose was not in her bedroom, though it certainly looked like she had been. A flurry of clothing and beauty supplies littered the floor. The incense burnt at the nub and in a large, fragrant pile on her bedside table.

Hanzo turned toward the light of the bathroom. The door was closed, probably locked. 

He squinted at the shadow that moved beneath it. “Rose?”

He heard movement, but no response. 

He stood in front of the door, curious. “Are you—”

“Don't,” she began. “Don't ask me, please.” 

He could hear her feet against the tiles and then the sound of her weight pressing up against the door before sliding down, toward the floor. 

He contemplated her behavior, strange and roundabout in a way he was unused to. But she had put up with his mood swings, had been patient. The least he could do was return the favor. 

He sat opposite to her, pressing his back ever so gently against the door in turn.

“Were you injured from the other night?” He asked, his voice sounding odd to his own ears—gentle in a way he usually was not.

“I—When I'm conflicted, sometimes it's hard to use my magic."

His own powers were similar, he still could not feel the dragons. Their presence was a quiet one. He thought of last night, even then their reactions to each other's gifts had been silent. Had it happened then to her as well? 

“Why are you conflicted?” he asked. 

She was quiet for awhile. For selfish reasons, Hanzo wanted to hear her voice again. 

“I can speak to Michel and tell him you are unwell,” he said.

She shifted against the door. Hanzo could imagine her shoulder brushing against his if he tried.

“It's one of my biggest shows, I can't…” She let her voice taper off.

She was distressed in a way he had not seen since—

“You have not found the answer to your question,” Hanzo realized.

Her silence confirmed as much. The night they had reconciled, her eyes desperate for understanding. Why was she here helping Overwatch? She still did not know.

“Is being a healer no longer enough?” He asked.

He heard clicking— her nails against the tile. “I think I already knew it wasn't enough a long time ago.” 

He did not know what she meant by that. The conversations they had had with each other had all been based upon pretext. She knew about him, his family, his relationship with Genji, and yet, he knew little about her past and history. Where she had come from, and now presently, where she was going. Discomfort welled up in him at the thought.

“What am I? Without my abilities?” She asked, freeing him from his thoughts.

“You are Rose,” he said simply.

He could nearly see her shaking her head, could hear the back of her hair brush against the door. “That's not enough, it can't be.”

“It is.”

“I don't—” she shifted against the door again, “Rose doesn't really do much.”

“Is being an international celebrity nothing these days?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do not.”

“I mean…” she trailed off, and he did not like how helpless her voice sounded, how alone it was despite him being there next to her.

“I understand your dilemma,” he said.

“Do you?”

He nodded even though she could not see.

“You know of my history.” That he did not know hers was a fact he chose to ignore. 

An intake of breath. “You and Genji— you can start over again,” she said. 

“It will not be that simple—” His leg bumped against the cabinet near the door, “You can also start over, if you so choose.” 

“Saying that and doing so are two entirely different things.” 

Without thinking, he said: “Step by step, walk the thousand-mile road.” 

She hummed, he thought he felt the vibrations of it pulse through the wood of the door. 

“Pot. Kettle.” 

He scrunched his eyebrows. “Ugh.” 

“What? If you get to use platitudes, I get to use idioms.” 

“If you stop with the inane English idioms, I will cease with the platitudes.” 

“That one’s not even rare.” 

“Genji was always better with those than I.” 

“An admission?” 

“A fact. I was more skilled in vocabulary. Genji and I would compete…” he stopped himself, yet another part of his history he had divulged.

“…A long time ago,” he finished lamely.

Rose did not respond. Perhaps she sympathized with him being caught in his memories. And maybe she was caught abreast in her own. It would not have been the first time. 

Memory and his segregation from it; It was why his own abilities were working against him, the barbs from the past were still sharp, even if they were pleasant recollections. The fact remained, he had stopped fighting for his family, for those important to him. Every ancestor had ensured his presence by that same protection and care, and he had been ignoring it. He idly wondered if Rose had ignored those she held dear, too. If her estranged partner were any indication, perhaps she had not chosen her present isolation willingly.

He was sure they were late to the show by now, but it no longer mattered to him that they were.

“According to Genji, you still have people who care deeply about you in Overwatch. And I… care for your future prospects wherever they may lead.” _And you_. He meant to say, but could not bring the words on his tongue to heel.

She took a deep breath, he could imagine her shoulders sag, an invisible weight lifting. “You know, you’re not too shabby with this whole ‘supportive’ thing.” 

“I see.” 

“Dropping the platitudes helps.” 

“Does it?” 

“Yes.” 

"Blame them on secondary education.” 

“For?” 

“I was student speaker at my college graduation,” he said. 

By her pause, he guessed she was on the brink of incredulity or laughter, perhaps both. 

“ _You,_ a collegiate cheerleader? No way.” 

He smiled only because he could hear one in her voice. “On the contrary, the main complaint I received after my speech was that I was too 'fatalistic'.” 

“So you're _nicer_ now? That's really something.”

“I have never been _nice_.”

“Just increasingly less grumpy, then?”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

Finally, he heard her laugh. His chest eased at the sound.

They sat in silence again as her laughter died down. Their breathing filling in the blanks, the weight of their backs keeping one aware of the other.

“It’s just whenever my tours finish… there’s nothing left,” she said. 

“You’re afraid of not having a purpose,” he said. “Your question is what that’s supposed to be.” 

She was tapping at the tile again.

“Stop being introspective.” 

“Am I wrong?” 

“Unfortunately not, Mr. Valedictorian.” 

Her sarcasm returning was a good sign. 

“As long as you do not kill your sibling and go on a decade long self-destructive journey to find yourself, I do not think it is necessarily a bad thing.” 

It was the lightest he had ever addressed that particular situation, but it did not seem wrong to do so with her. His posture eased by the smallest iota. 

“Was that a joke?” he could hear the smile in her voice. She already knew the answer. 

“Yes,” he said anyway. 

“Well, I don’t have any siblings, but I’m certain I can find a way to fuck it up somehow.” 

That she did not often curse made the word all the more jarring, but not in a bad way. 

“Not nearly as badly, I hope.” 

“Tips and tricks on how to ruin your life?” 

“Signed and initialed by Yours Truly.” 

She laughed again. It was brighter this time, but tinged with a pain that Hanzo was familiar with. Her laughter gave him permission to do the same. It was not possible, but Hanzo swore he felt warmth race down his spine. It blossomed from his shoulders, where the two of them would have been touching had it not been for the thick wood of the door. Not for the first time since they started speaking, he wished that they were touching. 

When their laughter stopped, he could still feel it. 

“You will find your way, Rose,” 

“You sound sure of yourself.” 

“I am.” 

Man was full of contradictions. That Hanzo fell into this designation himself did not come as a surprise to him. It had started at that Buddhist temple when he was young, the facade of humanity cracking when under his  scrutiny, his father’s tenuous principles, and the man shot dead in the tatami-lined room, were his first examples of this. Then there was Genji, and while Hanzo had betrayed the supposed principles of familial love for power and control, now that he had all but renounced them, he wondered where that left his principles now. 

What contradictions were left?

_“_ _We're not working well together._ _”_

He remembered Rose, exasperated, as she extended the olive branch that one night at the bar.

How different things were now, and how familiar they were all at once. 

He could hear her dress shift against the floor, then her feet tacking against the tile as she got up from her spot on the floor.

Hanzo followed suit.

She opened the door. 

Before he could turn around, she grabbed onto the back of his suit. Her hand was telepathic in its reach, a need for that understanding that had buoyed between them whilst speaking, aching to pass into the physical. 

There was the gentle press of her hand along his spine, followed by the bump of her forehead as she leaned against him.

 

_‘Thank you’_ , the gesture seemed to say, and something else the pressure of her palms had not been able to translate for him yet.

 

Just as he was prying this silent language apart, finger by finger, she slowly released her hands from him and there was silence between them again.

As she let go of the back of his suit to stand on her own, he wondered what part of him needed to understand her and what part was content with not knowing. He did not want to acknowledge the fear that came with the latter half of him. Because that fear told him something about their relationship that he was not yet ready to acknowledge.

“I'm okay,” she said.

And of course she was, she always was. Her own contradictions had led her to her bathroom, to lock herself inside, and they had led her back out. Of course she would be fine, with or without his intervention. But still, he was glad to hear it, he had been…worried. 

His throat tightened.

“I see.” A conversation filler that did not have the same connotations in English, but that he kept using even if she was unlikely to understand it. Another incongruity.

Her eyes dipped away from his as if she did, and maybe that was so. Maybe the fraught primer of his language he had taught her had actually impressed upon her in some way. 

Maybe the translation between them had gotten through after all.

When she looked back up at him he had drawn closer to her. That he wanted to return the favor in an entirely different way was a dangerous thought to say the least. 

But with the way she stood her ground, refused to back away from his presence, he guessed it was not entirely unwelcome, especially after the night prior.

“Ready to go?” she asked, her hand flirting with the opening of his jacket. 

He gently pressed her wrist deeper into him until her fingers spread apart, rubbing his thumb across the inside of it as she continued to watch him.

They were staring at each other again. Hanzo was growing tired of it, though the alternative was quick to reassert itself in his mind, wayward dreams and feelings making it hard to just accept.

“I’m really okay, by the way,” Rose said, buoying the conversation along due to his own quietude.

He felt himself drift nearer to her, though he could not recall when he had moved. They were nearly abreast of each other now, the bottom trim of her dress brushing against his pant leg.

He leaned down. “I know.”

Just as he dropped her wrist and allowed his fingertips to brush against her collarbone, there was a loud knock at the hotel door.  

“Rose! You’re on in ten! Where are you?” her manager yelled. 

They were too used to this, it seemed, this starting and stopping. 

Rose let out an impossibly small sigh. 

“Time to go.”

He nodded. 

When she took his hand, leading him out to where her transportation was waiting, it felt normal. 

That he gripped back even more so.

 

—

 

In his collegiate years, Hanzo would read about scholars lamenting the unending grip gender roles had on a society that was more advanced and progressive than ever. Some biased that it was a cultural stigma that had yet to be cured in _certain_ parts of the world. That these critiques were levied at his country and others nestled in the Pacific did not come as a surprise to him. The North American and European students he would encounter in Tokyo would often approach him as if he were innately barbaric. That their educators did the same explained their actions, but did not make them passable. 

This “barbarism”, however, had no clear line of delineation in his family. 

It was not as though femininity was looked down upon within his clan, a “gang is a gang” as Genji had liked to put it, but there was a different context to their history that made subordination in all aspects hard to shake. 

His mother never let that stop her, however. And, despite her own share of extrajudicial killings she carried out, she had never seemed conflicted to Hanzo. Unlike her husband, she never pretended peaceful precepts suited her or her family name. Or if she did, she never showed it. She was straightforward in a way Genji had not been. That she had been fond of him as a child because of this came as no surprise to the rest of the family. 

It was only when being a “mama’s boy” was read as feminine and therefore wrong that she distanced herself from him. 

Even in love, she was straightforward. She was set in the belief that he would be happier if he was not teased for something trivial and changeable, and in truth, he was. 

Where he was confused by expectations ever stacking atop him, she was there, the lone constant in his life. And he had abandoned her and the rest of his family to prison cells they would doubtlessly spend the rest of their days in. Barbarism— its own contradiction, Hanzo was sure. 

But he had left her behind before, it was easier the second time to walk away. If she blamed him, she never said anything, and in that non-action, he knew she still cared for him in some capacity. 

Straightforward and not at the same time. Their own code of contradiction.

 

—

 

Michel stared at him for some time after Rose was rushed onto stage.

His eyes were like incisors, picking apart Hanzo as soon as he and Rose parted for their respective jobs. Hanzo had his uniform on unlike last time, so the only reason for the other man’s scrutiny had to be from his close proximity to Rose— his meal ticket. 

She had skirted too close to his person, bodyguard or no. 

The small man was pretending to busy himself with the costumes in the back despite everyone having been dressed and ready hours ago. 

Considering he was not in good standing with the man to begin with, his actions were more grating to Hanzo than usual. 

When he turned to look at him directly, Michel was already staring. His lips set in a bold grimace.

They stood there a moment, hard stares turning more and more sinister. 

“You ought to watch yourself, Mr. Bodyguard.” 

Hanzo crinkled his nose in distaste.“Is not the whole purpose of my being here to watch?” 

He shook his head. “Not the way you’re doing it. Employees don’t look at their managers like that.” 

He did not like the insinuation that he was not doing his job, even less so that Rose was interfering with it. 

He squinted. “Like _what_?” 

“If you have to ask, you’re too far gone, friend.” 

Michel brushed by Hanzo on his way to the makeup rooms. 

Clearly, the other man did not consider him his friend. The exchange reminded him of his brokering deals with politicians in Hanamura. Unpleasant, but necessary. 

“Oh, and just so you know, you’ve been in the same spot for fifteen minutes. You should at least pretend you’re working.” He said with finality before turning on his heel and leaving. 

Hanzo could feel his face heat— had he really been standing there that long? He checked his phone to confirm.

 

He had.

 

He glanced at Rose again from his perch backstage and allowed the performance to dull his senses once more. It would be more proper to say he was distracted by her, but he did not want to admit that, as it would be a bit too transparent, a bit too embarrassing. 

So, he pretended he was in control. Keeping up outward appearances was something that was second nature to him, after all. It belied the inner turmoil that seemed inherent ever since he left Hanamura. 

He cleared his throat, convincing an unseen audience, and himself, of his inner zen before taking Michel's advice. He would do more than just “pretend to do his job”, however. If he was guilty of anything, it was being too thorough. 

However, with their recent escapades into Talon’s territory, he really should have been more alert.  He was annoyed that he had not been and was surprised they had gotten away with both break-ins, unharmed as they were. 

He skulked through the halls of the dressing rooms. Most of the occupants flitting in and out as needed on the main stage. The few unoccupied he opened and examined carefully. 

This was the second time he considered the prospect of Rose as being inherently distracting. But that was no problem of hers, it was a dilemma self-inflicted. The fact that she kept touching him was only making it worse. But telling her would be a ridiculous conversation to have. Not only that, but he did not necessarily want her to stop. 

The backrooms were unsettlingly empty. Hanzo combed them regardless. 

Her behavior today was… he could not describe it as anything but “intimate”. Why had she rested on him like that? He did not know how she treated her other friends, and from what he gathered from her relationship with Genji, she did not seem very… touchy. 

She had been emotionally distressed, however, that fact was not lost on him. 

Hanzo knew from personal experience it caused people to do a variety of irrational things. That he wanted the gesture to mean something else was just wishful thinking on his part. 

He shook away the thought and opened the next door. 

His eyes raked over the supply room in the back of the stadium and he found the crates in a state of disarray, which was not inherently eye-catching. What was perturbing was the manner in which they were arranged—as though a human hand had a part in doing so. Someone had tried to move them back to their original locations. 

The grate above looked carefully put together, but the metal plating still had the indentation of fingerprints. On the floor, the dust on the crates had been disturbed. The intruder had tried to be careful not to leave any indication of their presence, but half a footprint remained. 

He recognized the print as his own, but he had never been in the room. He scrunched his brow and examined further, the make, the model, all top of the line… No it wasn’t his foot. When he realized why, he sprinted from the room. 

His prosthetics had been designed in order to promote climbing and a superior grip in unusual terrain.  It wasn't his footprint, but someone else was utilizing the same technology, someone who had bothered to cover up their prints and break into an arena full of targets.

 

A sniper.

 

\--

 

In his travels across the world, Hanzo wondered if contradictions were simply transient, only present in the world and society because humans made it so. 

There was nothing that dictated he could not eat sweets, just like there was nothing that dictated Genji had to keep his hair a natural color to garner respect, but Hanzo had begun to think even then that tradition and the multiplicity of human nature were not oft at peace with one another. 

Is that not how he and Genji fell apart like they did? 

Hanzo posited that a life of solitude was not too at odds with one of killing. They suited his severe demeanor, and if he was anything, he was excellent on being what was expected of him. Even to people who had never met him. 

So, when Genji had turned out to be alive—in a cybernetic state, no less—even the contradictions made no sense. 

What was he without the shrine that he would travel to sullenly year after year? Where was the serious facade that came with it? It did not register as real any longer, so he had scrambled. Taken what parts of him that had made sense and glued them back together haphazardly. 

Trying to regain familial love and bonds did not fit into the plan he had made for himself. Neither did redemption without the one he was seeking forgiveness from not at the bottom of the sea where Hanzo had left him. 

A change of pace, light at the end of the tunnel, whatever phraseology used, the reaction to it was the same: he ran from it.  

Now the contradictions flowed like water. Almost to the point that he accepted them. Almost. 

His mother would have been so disappointed.

 

\--

 

Prevention was done in the planning stages, this Hanzo was a firm believer in.

Once something was in motion, it was hard to stop it. But if you kept the ball from rolling, got in the way of its course, it would not roll at all, or at least not as smoothly. 

It was rolling now, and Hanzo was racing against gravity.

Of course they had not gotten off as easily as he had hoped, and here was the proof. An assassin, somewhere in the stadium, likely there to take out Rose if the occasion were any indication. A performance was the perfect opportunity. Rose was out in the open of a large, busy stadium. All the sniper needed was one good shot, just one.

He cursed under his breath as he ran.

That he had been distracted caused this situation to come to fruition. If he had just been more level-headed, more stringent, more stern with his urges— if he had just ignored any and all distractions, no matter how nice they felt, this would not be happening right now. 

He ran faster.

He alerted the lower level security of the stadium once he emerged from the basement floors.

By now he could hear Rose in the finale of her act. 

If the assassin wanted to act before she disappeared, they would have to act soon. 

He was not going to be able to comb through a crowd full of people to see them in time. 

He rushed toward the stage.

The flurry of costumes, reds; lighting, yellow; and anxious chatter, blue— blurred into mush around him. All he saw, all he was focused on was Rose, bright, scintillating, as she bowed before her eager fans. Her smile wide and sincere, as if she did not have a care in the world.

_“_ _And now, my gracious audience, without the aid of technology new or old, I will_ _… disappear._ _”_

His teeth ground together, his muscles tensing as he pushed to go faster, just a little bit faster. Just a little bit farther to reach her, to grab her, to still the ball from making progress against them.

He yelled her name, but she could not hear him over the roar of the crowd.

She raised her hands, time thickening her movements, dredging them.

He felt his own actions react similarly as a result, as he reached farther and farther toward her, everything sunk into time’s cruel realm of jurisdiction.

Rose did not hear him by the sound of his voice, but for some reason, she turned anyway. The movement just as slow, just as frustrating to witness because his lips were not moving fast enough, either. 

He lunged toward her. If she was surprised, he did not see it. 

Because in an instant, the shot rang out. And then there was Pain, sharp, precise, piercing through his shoulder just as he grabbed her and huddled her head to his chest. 

That was loud enough. 

It took him no time to realize he was bleeding profusely. He could feel the left half of his body crumple, felt himself leak out onto Rose's dress. 

His ears were ringing.

He did not hear the assassin make another shot, as Rose had reacted by then. She had taken them backstage in an instant.

She was gripping onto him tightly, her hands pressing firmly into his side as she tried to stem the tide of blood.

In the daze of sound, pain, and light, all he could focus on was Rose's face. Panic, raw on her features in a way none of her other emotions were.

The feeling he so accompanied with their transportations was lacking because of how acute the pain was.

He could hear voices, Rose's and others that blended together the further his consciousness dipped into darkness. The details of her face blurring around the edges.

She was begging him to stay awake, which felt impossible. He felt another form at his side, everything else incomplete, fuzzy.

For the first time in his life, maybe, Hanzo felt rather weightless.

 

\--

 

He remembered his mother sewing on the porch.

Her back was strong, authoritative as if the action needed all of her collective attention.

If he got nearer to her, she would stop and ask him what he wanted, so he stood far enough away that the piercing of the needle could be discerned. In and out, like it was smooth velvet and not the starched heavy fabric that she cut from the stiff reams in her closet.

If he watched long enough, he would see the beginning of a pattern unfold under the command of her hand, brown against the harsh white of her material.

Despite how serene the image looked, how at peace everything was with her role as housewife and matron to the family, the action felt violent.

Hanzo could practically hear the thread unravel just as he watched her bring it to order, stitch by simple stitch. The sound reminded him of harps, of the firm fingertips pushing the music to their whim. It was a hush, a breath of wind and fabric both.

He was shocked out of his reverie when she suddenly stopped and turned toward him.

“Run along and play, Hanzo.”

That he walked instead was his way of showing disappointment. There was no harm in watching. No need to be that strict.

No need, he had thought to himself.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the amazing http://erothreep.tumblr.com/
> 
> Please review!

 

* * *

 

 _"Do_ _n’t fall apart._ _”_

Michel was operating.

That he even knew how to was a detail that flew over Rose’s head, as did everything else. Everything else except the blood.

There was a lot of it, too much, almost like, just like—

 _“_ _Don’t fall apart._ _”_

She did what she was told mechanically as they transported Hanzo in a discreet car. The stadium security had swarmed around them, pushed and pulled Rose and Michel out and away from danger before evacuating her fans. Everything felt like it was blurring around the edges, out of focus somehow as they drove.

She passed Michel medical equipment so advanced she had forgotten what decade she was in. But her unit had been underfunded and archaic, so this was a bit updated, new in a way that blindsided her just like the blood had.

She kept Hanzo’s head steady as Michel knit him back together.

It was the arm where his tattoo was.

There was no chance to get anything more out of Talon, they had tried to kill her and they had shot Hanzo instead. He had dove in front of her, risked his life for her. And for what? Why? The similarities of the present situation made her memory short-circuit. She could feel the frayed wires of the past and present making themselves known, making themselves electric.

It was hard to breathe.

Michel worked diligently as they pulled into a garage Rose didn’t recognize. The only light came from the car they had drove in with. He punched in a pin code and was greeted by a robotic voice, not an omnic, but something smart enough to open the doors up for them and turn on the lights.

Rose swallowed what little spit was left in her mouth to wet her too-dry throat.“Where are we?”

He grunted as he ripped off a stubborn part of Hanzo’s dress shirt. “A secure location. I mapped out places like this in all the cities you’ve toured in.”

Rose was as confused as she was distressed, and for once she didn’t mind letting those feelings register on her face.

“Hideaways are easier to find then hotels in NYC. Who would have guessed?” Michel said, trying to lighten the mood, but Hanzo’s blood was still on her dress, her hands, and was now staining the SUV’s carpet, so Rose couldn’t find it in herself to laugh at the joke.

Michel’s face grew stoic again as he tended to his patient once more.

She helped him lift Hanzo, but they only went up one floor in the elevator.

The room they entered was dark as a result. Michel flipped on so many switches she lost count.

“No windows for now,” he explained.

Rose nodded numbly as they set Hanzo down on one of the pre-made beds.

She watched him for a few more minutes as he worked before he looked up exasperated.

“Go clean yourself up and rest.”

“I—”

“I’ll take care of him. He saved your life, after all.” Michel said. She was his lifeline, and more than that, his friend.

She hadn’t considered he might be distressed too, she was too consumed in not collapsing under the weight of her own thoughts. Of her own neatly-packaged memories and traumas that were now unfurling, ripping at the seams. There had been so much blood.

She leaned against the wall.

“Michel.”

“I know, dear.” He started using a mechanism that removed the pieces of shrapnel in Hanzo’s chest.

The blood had stopped flowing as earnestly now. Michel’s shoulders seemed to lighten as the work became less strenuous.

“He’s not Ava, okay?”

She took a breath.“Okay.”

“Okay, then.”

She watched him work in silence for a moment longer, his hands steady as he worked the equipment over Hanzo’s skin and muscle.

“Did you think knocking at my door all those years back would end in this kind of mess?” She asked. Because sarcasm was a better conversation starter than dull numbness, and she didn’t want to think about why she was on the brink of a breakdown.

 _“_ _Don’t fall apart.”_ She clawed at the dull wallpaper. _  
_

He let out a half-hearted chuckle.

“I can’t say I came from the humblest of origins, anyone who can clean up a gunshot wound as fast as I can hasn’t, but I believed in you. I still do. Whatever happens next is fine by me.”

“Michel.”

“Yes, dear?”

He was tired. No doubt he was affected by the situation more than he let on, but like Rose, he was raised to heal in his own way, to aim for something greater at his own expense. It was why he suggested traveling with her. He saw the magic in the world and how to give it to others. She had seen that in him, too.

“Thank you,” she said.

He just smiled before refocusing on Hanzo, who was now breathing more steadily. “Stop looking at the blood on the carpet and clean up, will you? We’ll both be here when you come back.”

She nodded stiffly before ambling to the other side of the apartment.

 

She remembered when she first got her dress tailored. It was supposed to look savvy enough for the generation she was in without losing where she had come from. A modern southern belle. The large half-hoop skirt dropped to the tile, bloody and beyond a dry-cleaner's help.

She turned the shower on scalding and would have dialed it up further if the automated systems hadn’t stopped her. This is why she preferred outdated living spaces. She sighed, forehead first against the tile, her shower cap sinking under the weight of the water.

Her prosthetic felt heavy again, and despite the fact that Hanzo had replaced the old mechanisms in her arm just the other day, she felt it ache with a familiar pain.

The throbbing emanated from her side and spread to the rest of her body until it was pounding in her ears. She closed her eyes.

 

 _“_ _It wasn’t your fault, Rose._ _”_

_“_ _You did what you could._ _”_

_“_ _Honestly, a discharge after such an…intense trauma might be for the best._ _”_

_“_ _We have your best interest at heart._ _”_

 

The water had grown cold and Rose’s skin felt live-wire raw when she opened her eyes again.

Michel was right, Hanzo wasn’t Ava. But what he was and what they were to each other was something Rose still wasn’t sure of.

She turned off the shower and took her time drying off.

She removed her makeup, trimmed her nails, cleaning the blood from underneath them, and twisted her hair, tying it up and away from her face.

By the time she was finished, her legs were shaking from standing too long and her head was foggy from the remaining hot air in the bathroom.

She ambled outside of the room to find the main room dark. Michel had a lamp on next to Hanzo’s bed and was softly dozing in an armchair, taking a deserved rest after the ordeal.

New sheets and a comforter were on both beds and the bloodied ones in a corner, wrapped neatly in a plastic bag. She didn’t have to do anything but sleep. Rose didn’t know what she had done to deserve such a good friend.

Hanzo’s arm and chest had signs of injury, but just barely. Medical technology had come very far, after all. Still, Michel had the same habit as Rose in that he finished his treatment with wraps of gauze despite the lack of open wounds. Something his mother taught him to do, no doubt, just like hers had.

Hanzo was sleeping softly, his breaths even and deep. The second time Rose had ever seen him look so peaceful and he had nearly died.

She took a seat opposite of Michel and rested her hands on the bedspread.

This was also the second time she had seen the man incapacitated. She shuddered to think what would happen to him if he stayed around her any longer.

And that’s what it all came down to in the end.

Hanzo wasn’t Ava. But neither of them needed to be around her anymore.

She rubbed Hanzo’s fingers in-between hers as she watched him sleep.

“I’m sorry,” She gripped his fingers.

He wasn’t cognizant, but Rose knew he had heard. In the desperate moments he had been awake, he must have seen it in her eyes.

She rested her forehead on his bedspread and let his steady breathing and the dimness of the room rock her to sleep.

His hand was a final comfort. Tomorrow, she would have to release it.

It was time to let go. After all, she didn’t need a bodyguard.

 

—

 

In the morning, she called Genji.

Michel had left by the time she woke up, leaving behind a letter to speak in his absence. He would be back the next day after he had handled PR and dealt with refunding tickets to her fans. He fussed at her to rest and “eat something bigger than a block of cheese.”

She had been thinking about doing just that. When she looked at her phone and the slough of missed calls from Genji, however, her stomach lost any remaining vigor it had.

Her finger hovered over the call button for a moment too long before she pressed it.

He answered immediately.

“Is he all right?” he asked.

She had moved to the other room so she could give Hanzo some rest. That and she didn’t want to explain the ordeal to Genji as if he wasn’t in the room, even if he was unconscious.

“Yes, he’s recovering now.”

A long sigh on Genji’s end. “I apologize, Rose.”

“For what?” she said automatically.

“I should have had more people there with you—”

“I knew what I signed up for, Genji.”

They had both known the danger, the implication of going up against a terrorist organization hadn’t been lost on her. The fact that he even wanted to apologize made her sink into herself again ever so slightly.

She had told Genji the “whys” surrounding her discharge, but never the “hows”. As far as he was concerned, she had simply done her job. Just like now.

“I know, but I did not wish for you to relive… certain situations.”

She sighed, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Yeah, well, me either.” 

“I do not understand how they linked it back to you so quickly,” he changed the subject.

“We were the only new element in their organization. Perhaps they just made an educated guess?”

“And risk losing your support if they were wrong? No, something must have given you away.”

She really didn’t want to think about the logistics of how she had royally screwed things up, she only knew that she had and they had to move on.

“Well, we have the data now, right? It’s over.”

“What of your tour?”

“Canceled, of course.”

“Hn. I will be arriving tomorrow.”

“Why?”

The idea of facing him after she had nearly caused his brother’s death was more than she wanted to internalize in a week.

“You need protection now. We will all rendezvous at the base.”

She sighed. She was too tired to argue, and she still felt boneless and cold. The last thing she wanted was to be alone, despite her insides screaming that she deserved to be.

“Okay.”

If Genji noticed the lack of fight in her, he didn’t acknowledge it.

“Be well, Rose. We will speak again soon.” 

She listened to dead line ring in her ear for longer than necessary before dragging the phone down her face.

 

“That was Genji?”

 

She didn't turn. She didn't have to to know he was standing when he shouldn't be, moving when he shouldn't be, hurt when he shouldn't have been around her to begin with. She picked at the case of her phone and decided to stare at the kitchen counter instead.

“Yes, he was worried. I told him you were okay.” She said quickly.

If she didn't see him, she wouldn't have to think of the moments they shared, his eyes on her and his heartbeat underneath her fingertips as he bled.

“Thank you.” He said.

“It was Michel, I uhm, I couldn't do much.”

He didn't say anything in response to that.

“You should still be resting.”

He didn't respond immediately, but she heard him take a step on the stiff carpet and then another one.

“Hanzo—”

“Why won't you look at me?”

She inhaled. “Go back to your room and rest.”

She walked toward the adjacent door and felt his hand lightly touch her wrist just as the door hissed open. He wasn't holding her there, the press of his fingers was negligible. But in that moment, she couldn't move, couldn't break that tenuous connection between them.

“Rose.”

“I messed up really bad, so—” she took in a sharp breath—“you should stay away from me.”

“I do not understand.”

She shook her head. “Please just—”

“It was not your fault.”

She still wouldn't look at him, but she could feel him hovering over her, anticipating. “Of course it was,” she whispered.

Hanzo wasn't Ava. She knew this, but they both had one thing in common: her. The pain she had caused both of them.

She jerked her hand away. “I shouldn't have gone on this mission— it was silly of me to think for a moment things could change.”

“It was my job to protect you, I should have noticed the assassin sooner.”

“You shouldn't be around me anymore.” She nodded to herself. It was simpler this way. Simpler to lock herself away again so she couldn’t harm anyone else she cared about.

He tried to touch her. “Rose—”

She put both hands up. “Please, please stop being nice to me. It got you shot. You're smarter than this, you should know better!”

Her voice was cracking and she really shouldn't be shaking so severely. How selfish it was, she thought. He was the one who got hurt and all she could think about was herself. All she could think about was that one singular pain that she should have dismissed years ago.

“Please…”

She heard him drop his hand to his side, but he still hadn’t stepped away from her.

“Does this have to do with your previous woman?” He asked.

She clenched her teeth. Remembered Michel's words echoing in her ears— something solid. She gripped onto it. “You're not— That's none of your business.”

“Is that so?”

“It's _so._ _”_

“You never told me what happened to her, only that you were discharged from Overwatch and your arm with it.”

And of course he wanted to know, he did have a right to know why he had been hurt for simply being around her. About Ava, about everything. But rage was her only mouthpiece in that moment, and she couldn't rein that in, not after years of pretending it wasn't there.

 

 _“_ _Don't fall apart._ _”_

 

Her nails scraped at her palms.

“And that's where both of them stay, and my memories along with them!” Her throat felt raw, as if she had been screaming for hours and not the scant seconds that she had raised her voice.

She stood there shaking for a moment, but she could feel his eyes boring into her neck.

“They are not there now.” His voice was infuriatingly calm as he said it.

“Why can't you just leave it be!?”

She had finally turned to him, her eyes burning, blurring, and searching his. He looked tired, the small amount of sleep they had both gotten not nearly enough, especially not for a man who had nearly died. The rage dulled a bit at the edges. He didn’t deserve to be yelled at, just like he didn’t deserve to get hurt. She tried to look mad at him, but it wasn’t working. Her posture began to droop lower and lower as the rage ebbed away.

He didn't look away from her false anger and the fear that she hid behind it.

He looked through both to where the tears were sitting and lifted his hand to wipe them away.

Tender, so tender. The softness between them that had built up until only thick, unbreathable cotton remained. She couldn’t ignore it any longer, couldn’t ignore him.

“I cannot just leave it be,” he said quietly.

“Why?” She was trembling now, wasn't breathing correctly because it was too much. Much too much. And he was still there despite the weight, the crushing feeling pressing against her neck and throat.

He gripped her hand and brought her into his chest. Cool comfort dimming the painful heat in her body.

“Why can't you?” She whispered, hot, thick tears blinding her to everything but his touch, his care.

He shook his head but didn't answer, simply stood there steady as she cried in his arms.

She had fallen apart and he had kept the dainty pieces of her safe in his palms.

  
—

He held onto her for what felt like hours, her tears punctuated with barely-contained cries that he calmed with his presence. She clawed at his back for stability, earth where her sorrow was water-logged and impermeable. He waited until her whimpers turned to barely audible sighs, and even then he held her, even when she felt his legs begin to shift with exhaustion.

When she felt herself come out of the spell, she gripped his waist and brought them both to the couch to sit.

They catnapped intermittently, cradled into one another until late evening. His hands were soft despite his calluses, their message clear as he held her there, gently, but without forgetting she was real. Remembering to grip her like a person and not the impossibly broken thing she felt like.

When she stirred for the final time, still warm in his arms, he woke with her, eyes blinking slowly in the dimness of the room.

His face looked gentle again, his neck slightly wet with the tears she stained him with.

She sat up, wiped her face with both her hands again and again until the friction dried her skin. Then she did the same for his neck, looking him in the eye this time.

“I’m—” she began, but stopped to wipe her eyes again.

She pulled down her shift, as it was riding up her thigh, and sat more comfortably on the couch, her knee brushing against his, this time unabashedly.

“We were going to win,” she started.

He sat up a bit, his eyes sharp, ready to peel and examine her words if need be.

“Were?” he asked.

She nodded slowly, licking her lips. “And we did, eventually, but... not without a few losses first.”

He nodded ever so slightly, prompting her to continue.

Reliving this wasn’t something that she wanted to do again. But he had to know why so he could keep away, to keep safe. It was for his own good. She took in a breath.

“I was supposed to be more vigilant, but I was tired, we all were. We’d been advancing for days and—” she sighed, then tensed again.

Her body was too tired to move in that moment, her mind too addled by the grief she had dredged up. There was no way for her to escape physically, so she did so in a different way.

“Did you know the human body when sleep deprived operates in the same state as when intoxicated?” she said in a single breath.

He blinked.

“It deteriorates the senses, almost as if your body is trying to eat away at you. After awhile, you don’t feel anything, you can’t keep up.”

She babbled, distracted, spoke of facts that related but didn’t truly matter. His eyes saw right through her, his hand rubbing gently against her ankle to bring her back to him, forcing her to reassess. He knew her better than that. When had that happened? Why did it not surprise her?

“I have experienced as much,” he said.

She continued. “Ava, she— we were involved before the fighting really got bad, and we promised to stay together but—”

She leaned against the arm of the couch, wrapped herself up in her own arms.

“We weren’t prepared for an attack like that, we scattered and they got Ava really bad in the arm, three shots dead on.”

She looked at his recently-injured arm and looked away just as quickly.

He was confused, his eyebrows crinkling together like they so often did. He looked down at her own prosthetic and then up at her eyes again.“Ava’s?”

Everyone else had had the same expression. When she had written her report, she had told the story again and again to her superiors.

Explaining magic always required threes, she found. After the third time she explained, they had stopped asking her and had looked at her with something akin to incredulity, and then fear.

“Magic is give and take. If you want something, you have to give something up—” She smiled wryly. “and I wanted— I wanted Ava’s arm back, so she could live.”

Hanzo didn’t need to be told three times. He just looked angry, putting the pieces together much too quickly. “She left.”

In a way, she had. Their relationship had ended, and with it Rose’s career at Overwatch. But that wasn’t fair, Ava hadn’t known what Rose was. She had never told her.

Her eyes were still burning and she willed them not to as she rubbed them again. She could practically see how red they were with the way he looked at her. All thinly-veiled concern and rage which only made his face look more serious than usual.

Rose dropped her legs from her hold on them as Hanzo shifted on the couch.

“No, I left. I was discharged due to emotional trauma, complex PTSD—” she stopped to smile bitterly. “whatever you want to call it.”

She could tell he was staring at her again, but her nails, the floor, and the kitchenette were suddenly more interesting.

“I do not understand.”

Rose heard the underlying question he was asking and wasn’t sure if she wanted to answer it yet. His grip on her ankle lessened somewhat and the change in pressure caused her to look toward him once more.

She rested her head on the armrest, the twists that had come undone in the heat of the bathroom brushing against his forearm.

“In my practice, healers have to devote their entire lives to the art— and we’re punished when we forget that.”

He squinted and moved to rub his arm. “Ava was… forgetting?”

“Yes.”

He was pensive for a moment, putting together the pieces of what she had told him, his countenance growing less and less severe by the second.

“I—” he began, but was interrupted by a fit of coughing.

They both looked down at his hand. Flecks of blood sprouted around his fist like premature lilies.

He had lost a lot of blood the other day, and medical technology could only do so much.

Rose shook her head. “One second.”

She could hear Hanzo sigh as she went in her room to find the blood supplements and gauze Michel had given her. He had told her to look after Hanzo in his letter, but she had, _they_ had gotten distracted and those plans had fallen by the wayside, just like eating had.

She set two glasses of water on the coffee table, one for both of them, accompanied by his medicine and a thick roll of gauze. She sipped gingerly from her own cup before realizing how thirsty she was and downed the whole glass.

Hanzo did the same, swallowing the pills with no complaint, his eyes far away as he waited for her to tend to him.

Her hands froze on the opening of his shirt, the crispness he so liked in his clothing crumpled by sleep, and the hasty dressing and redressing Michel had done.

Taking off his shirt felt presumptuous somehow. Her hands belonged nowhere near him, much less on him. So she was stymied in that moment, unsure of how to proceed. Why had Michel left her alone with him to begin with, now that she thought of it? He was the one that had warned her to stay away from him. Had yesterday really made much of a difference in that opinion? Or maybe he was too busy to care, too sure of himself that Rose would be more occupied with keeping him alive than looking at him naked, and she was, it was just— weird.

He cleared his throat, which jump-started her attentions back to him.

“Sorry, uhm—” she began undoing his buttons one by one, trying not to press into his skin. His shoulders relaxing made it easier for her.

His head was shifted away from hers, but she could still hear him breathing steadily, a tide ebbing and flowing under her fingers as she finally undid the final stubborn piece of plastic.

“No pain?” She asked.

He shook his head no, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. Maybe he was still processing what she told him, thinking of his own role in this and whether or not he should even play that part.

She licked her lips as she unwrapped his old gauze, the skin below smooth, the only disruption on his bicep where the tattoo had been compromised somewhat.

She sighed. It wasn’t ruined, but she had no idea where he had gotten it done and didn’t want to ask. From his inattention to her, maybe he truly didn’t care about its desecration. His family was a sore spot, after all. Even if he and Genji reconciled, that didn’t mean the rest of his family received the same treatment.

She pressed into the now-exposed skin. “Really, no pain?”

“None,” he said.

The lack of tone in his voice made her believe him this time.

 

She smoothed the cream on the affected areas and carefully watched Hanzo for discomfort as she swathed him in a fresh layer of gauze.

He stared at the tan strips for some time before looking at her again. His eyes seemed clearer, less clouded with the anger that had simmered to the surface only minutes ago. He was sure of himself, then. Rose braced herself for the announcement that he would join Overwatch to be with his brother, that he wanted nothing to do with her anymore, that he would make sure to stay as far away from her as possible. She closed her eyes to lessen the blow, to take it in stride when it happened.

When he spoke again, she felt his words race across her spine. “When I failed to get to you in time yesterday, I blamed myself for getting distracted.”

She opened her eyes.

“Hanzo—”

He shook his head. “I thought if only I had not lingered to see you perform, if only my mind was more focused…”

She was staring at his chest now, her mind buzzing and her limbs too hot again.

He dipped his head as if to catch her eye.“But then, when I awoke, I realized my inattention was worth something in the end.”

She finally stopped to look at him, her hands stilling in their work, her whole body pivoting to attention. His eyes were warm, honeyed, and she had never seen him look so vulnerable.

“You distract me, but every time I think of an alternative, it is— painful.”

Rose shook her head, as if that would make him stop talking. As if that would make the voice in her head, the one egging her on, pushing her closer to him, allowing herself to stare a bit too long, stop. She moved to continued with the gauze.

He gripped her hands, stilling her momentarily. Her palm was heavy over his heart, his eyes pinning her to him.

“Perhaps, I do not mind being distracted by you.”

She stopped breathing as he said it, and she couldn’t look him in the eye again.

She remembered her auntie’s hands on her own, how they felt like snares instead of fingers. How everything seemed one-tracked in that moment. Walking this path was what was expected of her ever since birth, derailing had never occurred to her.

His hands felt like the ocean. Cool, free.

She wanted to cry again but closed her eyes instead. She was tired of crying and tired of shying away from what she wanted even more so.

“I—”

“You said that being a healer was no longer enough,” he said.

Hanzo’s hand released her temporarily— a sigh of sea-foam. “What is it that you want then, Rose?”

She had to stop wrapping at his elbow she was shaking so badly. What did she want?

She remembered childhood, her toes digging into the earth, the sun lapping at her skin as she shone on with it, the breeze of a new morning knocking at her window panes. She remembered Ava, hot and then burning. She remembered dancing, Hanzo’s hands on her waist, his breath at her ear as they warmed to one another.

She wanted laughter and warmth and freedom.

More and more, that was aligning with him.

She ducked her head as she finished wrapping, the places where she touched his body somehow too hot. She caught the end of his glance as he looked at her, his focus not shifting.  
  
The part of his tattoo that was uncovered on his forearm was as bright and strong as ever, and Rose marveled at the magic that must have gone into making it. Her hands traced the swirls and dips of the markings. The dragon she once thought of as violent and terrible a calm and graceful spiral. His skin soft and cool as the blue of the ink.  
  
“You should be okay now.” She said at a loss for something to say. Realizing what she was doing, she jerked her hand back.  
  
He caught it in its retreat, holding it tightly. He shifted closer to her. “Thank you, Rose.”  
  
“Of course.” She breathed out, but he didn't move back and didn't release her hand, either.  
  
Her body felt too hot and he was looking at her much too closely. This near to him, she hadn't realized how gentle his eyes were, how the harsh copper that she saw when he was angry receded into a deep, inviting brown. He examined her face, and she watched as his pupils traced the contours of her face, the arch of her nose, the brown of her lips.  
  
When she blinked in response, he was even closer. His nose brushing against hers, his breath warm against her face.

“Are you going to answer?”

She pressed her fingers into his chest just to feel him solid; alive. He was okay, had said as much. It was okay.

“Yes,” she breathed out.

His lips were brushing against hers now, catching the small utterance of her breath.

“What do you want then, Rose?”  
  
He released her hand to cup her chin and she felt everything slow down. Her heart sped up— racing in her fingertips, her ears. She knew they shouldn’t, knew these scant micro-moments would undo her and him both, but still she closed her eyes, brushed against his lips in return.

“I want you to stay.”  
  
His lips met hers.

They were as soft as she remembered, the beginning of the kiss slower than the performance they had put on. But this was a private dance no one need intervene on, and no one was there to push them to go faster.

There was no time limit working against them, no guards they were trying to fool, just attraction and want which made his attentions more urgent. Made his tongue rub achingly against hers as he shifted her onto his lap.  
  
She answered with her own fervor, pressing into him with her hips and tugging at his bottom lip with her teeth.  
  
The heat was unbearable now. It had always been so, but having him hot in her arms only stoked it, made them thirsty for each other. She felt him lift her shift up past her thighs and she let out a breathy sigh into his mouth as his fingers left hot imprints along her ass.  
  
She wrapped her legs around him and ground into his hips, pressing them even closer together and eliciting a groan from him. He was already hard. She could feel him press up against her thigh, every shift of her hips fueling their desperation.  
  
She gasped into his mouth when he lifted her, felt them move across the small apartment before he stopped, depositing her onto the bed in the other room.  
  
He crawled on top of her, tongue licking and biting against her neck before he pulled her shift up and off of her.

They fumbled, each of them wanting to hold, to touch, to overwhelm the other.  
  
His thumb traced over the damp of her underwear, pressing into her. The fabric a barrier before he pushed the article aside, dragged them up and off of her legs to tease her properly. She arched into his hand, gathered his waist with her legs and brought him closer still to her.  
  
He wouldn't stop kissing her, his mouth bouncing from her lips to her neck, giving her only seconds of space to try and get his clothes off. His neck was alight with red, some from her scratches, her kisses, her touch, the rest leftover from the heat that continued to build between them.  
  
She was fully undressed now but had only managed to get his shirt off.  
  
“Your clothes—” she breathed in-between kisses, trying and failing to undo his belt.  
  
He sat up and away from her, breathing hard and giving her the chance to undress him.  
  
She did so quickly and he shucked off his pants and underwear both before lowering himself down her body locking eyes with her all the while.  
  
He started a slow wet trail down her thigh, and then lower, and lower still. She gripped the sheets, squirmed as he dropped kisses along her skin.

It had been a while.

 

His eyes met hers and he pressed another kiss on the inside of her thigh. His hands firmly dragging her closer to him before taking her in his mouth. Rose sighed into the mattress and let her hips arch into his lips.  
  
She guided him to where it felt best, where his tongue made her breathy and incoherent as she gripped onto his hair, urging him on.

She could feel his lips thrum against her skin, vibrate in her core, her moans only growing louder, more lewd.

Her voice pealed through the dark space of his room. The only thing tethering her were his hands gripping her, his eyes drinking her in like his mouth was as she bucked against him.  
  
He held her still, his fingertips leaving marks she was sure she would feel in the morning.

Heated, consistent pressure quickly became overwhelming.  
  
Her first orgasm washed over her like a tidal wave, slowly building then rushing over her skin, enveloping her and him both. He continued sucking, licking against her until her skin felt feverish, her body too shaky and uncontrolled even as she calmed.

Finally, the room was quiet save for her breathing. She had gripped onto him too tightly, could see the beginning of red scratch marks on his neck.  
  
“Good?” He asked, his lips wet.  
  
He had to be teasing her again, because he was smiling in that way he did which was turning her on again.  
  
She swallowed. “ _Yes_.”  
  
Hanzo sat up to look at her, both of them relatively calmer. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark of the room, half of it lit with the leftover light from the living room. It was enough that she could see him stare at her, examining. She was already sweating, her head felt heavy, and her bones tired, but she wasn't ready to stop. The way his eyes followed the trail of sweat down her breast told her he wasn't, either.  
  
Yet, he waited. Watched. It was his own way of giving her a way out, an exit she could take if she so chose.  
  
She untucked the feelings that had been building for weeks, the sidelong glances, lingering touches. She unpacked everything and didn’t push them, or him, away. She let the voice in her sing. She leaned forward on shaky arms and kissed him again, tasted herself on his tongue, his lips, carding her fingers through his hair before he pressed her back into the mattress again.

She thought that sometimes she burned too much, was reminded briefly of a childhood where the sun shone through her skin, translucent, and she magnified its heat through the pool of her body.  
  
He didn't seem to mind. His fingers were pleasantly cool against her thighs, his lips an oasis to her skin.  
  
Meeting like this was an equilibrium she didn't know was possible for someone like her.  
  
When he entered her, kissing her neck while doing so, she ebbed and flowed with him. His heat a unique opposite to hers.  
  
The imbalance that came with learning another's body was evened out with the gentle heat that flowed between them. She moved her leg further up and over his shoulder for a better position and his hand followed, locking her firmly into place.

“Better?”

She nodded, scratching his forearm with her nails as the pleasure built.

He adjusted his depth with every thrust, a staccato rhythm that her hips slowly began to tune into, but it wasn’t enough.

“Hanzo—” she breathed, “slower.”

He nodded and forced himself to calm, closing his eyes then opening them with a renewed focus. She clenched her toes, nearly brought him off balance with how tightly her thigh squeezed against him.

They worked one another’s bodies until Rose was on the brink again. The sounds they were making hot and wet, echoing in her ears.  
  
Too loud. She tried holding in her voice with her hand.

He removed it just as quickly, pressing her palm into the sheets with his own.

“Don’t,” he said, his own voice strained.

Their eyes met in that moment between, and Rose nodded, held his gaze as she met his thrusts with her hips. Beads of sweat pressed in-between them, the heat, and rush of skin brushing, melding.

They moved faster. Rough, was the only way to describe it. The snap of his hips into her again and again, her nails, carding through his hair, then scratching down and up his back.  
  
He whispered into her neck when it became too much, and even if it wasn’t in a different language, Rose was too incoherent to understand it. All she could understand was the want in his voice, and his need for her to understand that want which only made her wetter, her moans louder, his thrusts more and more intense.

If her last one was like a tidal wave, she was already underwater now. She could barely breathe, her eyes fighting to stay open as the pleasure seeped through her arms, fingers, down the length of her legs. She forced herself to watch him, to keep her eyes open for him. He did the same, the intensity of his stare, the firmness of his body against hers finally sending her over the edge.

When she came again, he held her steady, let her ride it out as she bucked wildly onto him.

He followed shortly after. Letting out his voice, grunting as his grinding slowed to a lazy roll of his hips.

She laid cradled in his arms, still breathing hard.

He slid out of her without managing to move away from her. The need to press against each other stronger than the need for space.

Somehow, they made it underneath the sheets, her body collapsing atop his.

Languor and weariness seeped into her bones as they slowly caught their breath. She was comforted by his warmth— a heartbeat other than her own, beating below her. Her head was tucked in the crook of his neck, her hair brushing against his chin with every inhale he took, her skin tacking against his. She straddled the outside of his hips to keep from brushing against the sharp edges of his prosthetics. Her own prosthetic was lost in the curl of sheets and comforters.

His silence was deafening, and when their breathing evened out, it was even more so. She didn’t know what it meant, if this had been a mistake.

He gripped her waist tighter.

She looked up at him.

“Am I on the list now?”

 

A pause, and then laughter.

 

She slapped his arm lightly. “You’re the worst.”

He nipped at her neck. “I will take that as a yes,” he said, his eyes bright and warm even in the dark of the room.

She could feel the question before it was broached, like so many of his silent queries, she considered it with an equal amount of quiet.

She was tired, but not that tired to refuse.

She thumbed his bottom lip. “Three times’ the charm,” she said.

He hummed, wrapping her leg around his waist. “Is that an actual rule as well?”

“Want to find out?”

He smiled. Three more times that night he would repeat the gesture.

 

—

 

As they laid together, exhausted, still tucked into one another’s personal space, Rose heard Hanzo stir. On the edge of sleep and waking, she could barely keep her eyes open, but she could hear his breathing change.

He didn’t necessarily verbalize it, but she felt the words thrum against her skin anyway. A promise of: “ _I_ _’m here_ ,” felt, rather than said. Told by his hands that still hadn’t let her go, in the deepness of his breath in sync with hers.

He would be there when she woke up tomorrow.

—

 

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for the Overwatch Big Bang. Please if you like this story give me feedback! Original characters rarely get much love!


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